Fonds F0259 - Margaret Avison fonds

Margaret Avison, poet, was born in Galt, Ontario, and educated at the University of Toronto, graduating with a BA in 1940 and an MA 1965. Avison worked as a librarian, a teacher, and a social worker with the Presbyterian Church, writing poetry in her spare time. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1956, which she used to complete her first book of poetry, "Winter Sun" (1960). It was followed by "The Dumbfounding" (1966), "Sunblue" (1978), "No Time" (1989), "Not Yet but Still" (1997), "Concrete and Wild Carrot" (2002), "Always Now: The Collected Poems" (2003-2005), and "Momentary Dark" (2006). "Listening: Last Poems" and an autobiography, "I Am Here and Not-There", were published posthumously in 2009. Avison received the Governor General's Award for Poetry in 1960 for "Winter Sun" and in 1990 for "No Time", and the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2003 for "Concrete and Wild Carrot". She was made an officer of the Order of Canada in 1984 and was a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002. Margaret Avison died in Toronto on 31 July 2007.