Anne Wilkinson (poet)

Anne Wilkinson
Born	Anne Gibbons (1910-09-21)September 21, 1910 Toronto, Ontario
Died	Toronto, Ontario
Occupation	Poet
Language	English
Nationality	Canadian
Genre	Poetry

Anne Cochran Wilkinson (née Gibbons) (September 21, 1910 – May 10, 1961) was a Canadian poet who was part of the modernist movement in Canadian poetry in the 1940s and 1950s, one of only a few prominent women poets of the time, along with Dorothy Livesay and P.K. Page. Wilkinson published two books of poetry, Counterpoint to Sleep (1951) and The Hangman Ties the Holly (1955). A founding editor and patron of the literary quarterly The Tamarack Review, she also wrote a family history, Lions in the Way (1956), about her maternal family, the Oslers, and a modern fairy tale for children, Swann and Daphne (1960), before her early death from cancer in 1961. Her work was anthologized in The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse, appeared in several prominent Canadian literary journals of the day, including Northern Review and The Tamarack Review, was broadcast on CBC Radio's Anthology and recorded on the album Six Toronto Poets, alongside the works of W.W.E. Ross, Raymond Souster, Margaret Avison, James Reaney and Jay Macpherson. Forgotten for several decades, her work has enjoyed a minor revival since the publication in 2003 of Heresies: The Complete Poems of Anne Wilkinson, 1924–1961, edited by Dean Irvine.

Bibliography

Poetry

• Counterpoint to Sleep. Montreal: First Statement Press, 1951.
• The Hangman Ties the Holly. Toronto: Macmillan, 1955.

Prose

• Lions in the Way: A Discursive History of the Oslers. Toronto: Macmillan, 1956.
• Swann and Daphne, a children's story. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1960.

Posthumous books and other works

• The Collected Poems of Anne Wilkinson and a Prose Memoir, ed. A.J.M. Smith. Toronto: Macmillan, 1968.
• Elegy: Voice and Piano, music Oskar Morawetz, words Anne Wilkinson. Aneneas Music, 1989.
• The Poetry of Anne Wilkinson and a Prose Memoir, ed. Joan Coldwell. Toronto: Exile Editions, 1990.
• The Tightrope Walker: Autobiographical Writings of Anne Wilkinson, ed. Joan Coldwell. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992.
• Heresies: The Complete Poems of Anne Wilkinson, 1924–1961, ed. Dean Irvine. Montreal: Véhicule Press, 2003.
• The Essential Anne Wilkinson - poems, ed. Ingrid Ruthig. Erin: The Porcupine's Quill, 2014.

References and further reading

• Smith, A.J.M. "A Reading of Anne Wilkinson". Introduction to The Collected Poems of Anne Wilkinson and a Prose Memoir, ed. A.J.M. Smith. Toronto: Macmillan, 1968.
• Lecker, Robert. "Better Quick Than Dead: Anne Wilkinson's Poetry". Studies in Canadian Literature Volume 3, Number 1, 1978.
• Coldwell, Joan. "Anne Wilkinson." The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, ed. William Toye. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1983.
• Armitage, Christopher. Anne Wilkinson and Her Works. Toronto: ECW Press, 1989.
• Irvine, Dean. Introduction to Heresies: The Complete Poems of Anne Wilkinson, 1924–1961. Montreal: Véhicule Press, 2003.
• Ruthig, Ingrid. Foreword to The Essential Anne Wilkinson - poems. Erin: The Porcupine's Quill, 2014.

External links

• Anne Wilkinson at The Canadian Encyclopedia