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 Margaret Avison was twice a winner of the Governor General's prize for the best in Canadian poetry, along with many other honors. She became a Christian in 1963 which profoundly influenced her work.
Since her death July 31 and despite her accomplishments her passing has largely gone unnoticed by the media. canadianchristianity.com is pleased to offer a first hand account by Esther McIlveen of one of Canada's foremost poets.
The Vancouver Sun recently wrote about the death of Margaret Avison, calling it "Canada's loses 'national treasure'".
Margaret Avison entered our lives in the late '60's and worked with us for three years, when my husband and I were newly married and out to change the world of the underprivileged in Toronto. We had chosen to live in the inner city much to the consternation of our families. Margaret, however, felt comfortable in the area, linked up with us and we began to see these people through her compassionate eyes
Margaret, who is one of the most achieved poets in Canada, won the Governor General's Medal twice; once in 1960 for Winter Sun and in 1989 for No Time. She was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1985 and in 1990 was awarded $40,000 for the Griffin prize, Concrete and Wild Carrot. Momentary Dark, was her last book published in 2006. The Leslie K. Tarr Award, given for her outstanding contribution to Christian writing and publishing in Canada, was particularly meaningful to her.
Many considered Margaret to be a poet's poet and primarily metaphysical. Australian poet, Keith Harrison, claimed she was an accomplished poet like Gerard Manley Hopkins. "Avison is everywhere a religious poet, in that all her work is a celebration of the created world." Ray Daniels said of her writing, "It's a revelation of intense struggle and unrelenting pressures"
Margaret hobnobbed with Raymond Souster and Leonard Cohen; achieved her master's degree in Old Norse Icelandic and was a writer in residence for Western and York universities, as well as Regent College on the UBC campus. She was as shy as she was brilliant. She used to "write down in school" so she wouldn't get higher marks than her peers.
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We referred to her as the poet of mirth, because of the twinkle in her eyes and her playful words, "I am coming closer like a sneeze." "Wintry wind is sounding tonight like all earth was a jet-plane and my bedroom left behind in the slipstream."
We were much younger than Margaret, but she made us feel that our simple lives helped to "harmonize her discords!" To help me grieve her loss, I opened a folder of all of Margaret's many letters, cards and poetry she wrote for us. "The two McIlveens finding rose traces where sensible people would know it was thistles, are wine dark with adventure". "To celebrate friendship together this way is a new wonder in the shared Life of Christ. My whackings from extreme to extreme do not unsettle you, apparently - you peacefully just include me in a life interpenetrated by God at all points. It has given me new heart, high hopes for more and more and more - all eternity not enough, if it were less than forever."
When one of our men, Roy, cut his wrists, he said of his action, "I tried to cut off my callouses." Margaret quoted a Spanish philosopher who said that the worst horror was watching a knife pass into your flesh, your forearm he said-and feeling, being able to feel, nothing. This episode made Margaret
recall her spiritual awakening. "The knowledge of deadness in the emotional nature was my first clue to need, when I saw the aliveness God had given
the witnesses he put in my way.
Margaret loved and understood the characters at the Mission. She identified with their poverty, mental illness and aloneness. She created a brochure about John who was in advanced stages of schizophrenia, called, "27 pairs of worn out shoes" (which is the only thing they found after John moved from his rooming house).
Margaret Avison died July 31 in Toronto. Her life has been like a effulgent rainbow arching over brilliant and illiterate minds and the poorest of the poor.
Links:
www.cbc.ca
renewalfellowship.presbyterian.ca/
www.brocku.ca/
August 30/2007
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