Margaret Avison

Known primarily as a religious poet, Avison began her career writing highly intellectual, secular poetry. Her first book of collected verse, Winter Sun (1960), is representative of this early phase of her work. The focus of Avison's writing changed after 1963, when she embraced Christianity as the result of a religious experience. Avison's subsequent collections--The Dumbfounding (1966), Sunblue (1978), and No Time (1991)--all reflect the poet's reverence and wonder for "the Jesus of Resurrection power." Critics have praised the power of Avison's devotional poetry, likening her to such poets as George Herbert, John Donne, and T. S. Eliot. Her verse is also admired for its complexity, conciseness, and striking language.
BIOGRAPHY: Avison was born in Galt, Ontario. Her father, a Methodist minister, was transferred to parishes in Regina, and later, Calgary, during her childhood. Avison has described the impact of growing up on Canada's western prairies: "The landscape around southern Alberta permanently defined space for me." Although the poet's childhood was a happy one, she became aware of the sufferings of others when she witnessed the intense poverty of the Great Depression. Some critics suggest that the existence of such economic and social disparity may have caused Avison's religious faith to diminish as she grew into her older teens. While Avison remained active in Christian community service groups, she stopped attending church for close to twenty years. In 1931 Avison moved back to Toronto, and in 1936 she began attending Victoria College at the University of Toronto. Her earliest poems and essays appeared in a campus publication called Acta Victoriana. In 1939 her poem "Gatineau" appeared in Canadian Poetry Magazine. Avison completed her arts degree in 1940 and after graduation held a number of temporary jobs, including file clerk, librarian, research assistant, teacher, and freelance writer. Her work was featured in the 1943 edition of A. J. M. Smith's anthology The Book of Canadian Poetry. Avison also wrote a textbook, History of Ontario, for junior high school students, published in 1951. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1956-57, which she used to travel to Chicago. There she completed her first poetry anthology, Winter Sun, which won a Governor General's Award for poetry. The turning point in Avison's career came in 1963. That year she returned to the University of Toronto for further graduate studies and attended a writer's workshop at the University of British Columbia, where she had the opportunity to work with such American poets as Robert Creely, Charles Olson, and Denise Levertov. The most important event of that year, however, was a religious conversion during which Avison reclaimed Christianity with a new vigor. After completing her master of art's degree with a thesis on the poetry of Lord Byron, Avison worked as a teacher at Scarborough University and served as writer-in- residence at the University of Western Ontario. Avison continues to live and work in Toronto.
Avison is not a prolific poet, with only four anthologies of her work published to date. Her earliest collection, Winter Sun, explores humanity's search for meaning and significance in the modern world. In this volume the poet's subject matter varies from environmental destruction and the plight of the poor to metaphysical ponderings and playful explorations of language. Avison's emphasis is on looking at the familiar in new and thought-provoking ways. In her second work, The Dumbfounding, Avison expresses her wonder at her own rediscovered faith. It employs the same poetic techniques as Winter Sun, but here the poet is no longer searching for meaning. "Truth" has been identified as the presence of a personal, loving, and forgiving God. Both Sunblue and No Time reconfirm Avison's commitment to her Christian faith.
Among those familiar with her verse, Avison has the reputation of being a cerebral poet. Her work has been characterized as "intellectual" and "deliberate"; her use of word-play, disconcerting shifts in viewpoint, complex metaphors, and literary allusions make her poetry a challenge to read. Critical response to Avison's works has generally been positive. Reviewers have praised the poet for using complex language not as an end in itself, but to accurately convey her subject matter: the love and power of God. Though some secularist critics find her post-conversion poetry too dogmatic, this tends to be a minority opinion. Avison's defenders admit that the poet's religious preference is readily apparent in her work, but also claim that the purpose of Avison's poetry goes beyond that of simple religious proselytizing.
PERSONAL: Born April 23, 1918, in Galt, Ontario, Canada; daughter of Harold Wilson (in the clergy) and Mabel (Kirkland) Avison.
EDUCATION: University of Toronto, B.A., 1940, M.A., 1964.
ADDRESSES: Home--17 Lascelles Blvd., Apt. 108, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 2B6.
CAREER: Poet. Worked variously at North American Life Insurance Company and Gage Press; editor with Canadian Institute of International Affairs, ending in 1945; University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, registrar's office and library staff member, 1945-55, also lecturer; nursemaid, 1955; Presbyterian Home Missions, Toronto, worker; University of Western Ontario, writer-in-residence, 1972-73; Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), archives division staff member, 1973-78; Mustard Seed Mission, Toronto, staff member, beginning in 1978.
AWARDS/HONORS: Guggenheim fellowship, 1956; Governor General's Literary Award for poetry, 1960.
WRITINGS:
History of Toronto, Gage, 1951.
Winter Sun (verse), University of Toronto Press/Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960.
(Translator with Ilona Duczynska and Karl Polanyi) The Plough and the Pen: Writings from Hungary 1930-1956, McClelland and Stewart, 1963.
(With Albert Rose) The Research Compendium, University of Toronto Press, 1964.
The Dumbfounding (verse), Norton, 1966.
Silverick, Ganglia Press, 1969.
The Cosmic Chef, Oberon Press, 1970.
(Translator with Duczynska) Jozsef Lengyel, Acta Sanctorum and Other Tales, Owen, 1970.
Sunblue (verse), Lancelot Press, 1978.
Selected Poems, Oxford University Press, 1992.
Contributor to anthologies, including The Book of Canadian Poetry, University of Chicago Press, 1943, Recent Canadian Verse, Jackson Press, 1959, and The Country of the Risen King: An Anthology of Christian Poetry, Baker Books, 1978. Also contributor to periodicals and literary magazines, including Canadian Forum, Manitoba Arts Review, and origin.
FURTHER READINGS:
BOOKS:
Annotated Bibliography of Canada's Major Author, volume 6, edited by Jack David and Robert Lecker, ECW Press, 1985.
Contemporary Literary Criticism, Volume 2, 1974, Volume 4, 1975.
Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 53: Canadian Writers Since 1960, Gale, 1986.
Kent, David, Margaret Avison and Her Works, ECW Press, 1989.
Redekop, E. H., Margaret Avison, Copp Clark, 1970.
PERIODICALS:
Canadian Literature, autumn, 1959; spring, 1974.
Twentieth Century Literature, July, 1970.