Anne Szumigalski

Last updated

Anne Szumigalski

SOM
BornAnne Howard Davis
3 January 1922
London, England
DiedApril 22, 1999(1999-04-22) (aged 77)
Saskatoon, Canada
GenrePoetry
Notable awards Saskatchewan Order of Merit, Governor General's Award
SpouseJan Szumigalski (1946–1985)
Children4

Anne Szumigalski, SOM (b. 3 January 1922 in London, England, d. 22 April 1999) [1] was a Canadian poet.

Contents

Life

She was born Anne Howard Davis in London, England, and grew up mostly in a Hampshire village. She served with the Red Cross as a medical auxiliary officer and interpreter during World War II, following British Army forces in 1944-5 across parts of newly liberated Europe. In 1946, she married Jan Szumigalski, (d. 1985) a former officer in the Polish Army, and lived with him in north Wales before immigrating to Canada in 1951. They had four children: Kate (born 1946), Elizabeth (1947), Tony (1961) and Mark (1963). She spent the rest of her life in Saskatchewan, first in the remote Big Muddy valley, then in Saskatoon. [2]

Writing career

Most of her fifteen books are collections of poetry, but she also wrote a memoir, The Voice, the Word, the Text (1990) as well as Z., a play about the Holocaust. Her first book, Woman Reading in Bath (1974), was published by Doubleday in New York. Thereafter she made the deliberate choice to publish her work with Canadian presses. She helped found the Saskatchewan Writers Guild and the literary journal Grain, and served as a mentor to many younger writers.

Szumigalski combined a love of the Canadian Prairies with a passion for language, a faith in poetry and an intimate knowledge of literary tradition. She was a great admirer of William Blake, some of whose visionary qualities appear in her own work.

Her finest work is collected in a big volume of selected poems, On Glassy Wings (Coteau, 1997). In 2006 her literary executor Mark Abley edited a volume of her posthumous poems, When Earth Leaps Up. A final posthumous book is expected in 2010.

The Manitoba Writers Guild has set up a scholarship in her name. [3] The Saskatchewan Book Award for Poetry is named for her. [4] Her papers are held at the University of Regina, [5] and University of Saskatchewan. [2]

Awards

In 1989, she was awarded the Saskatchewan Order of Merit. Her 1995 collection Voice, featuring paintings by Marie Elyse St. George, won the Governor General's Award for English language poetry. [6] She also received many other honours over the years. [7]

Works

Memoirs

Plays

Poetry

Related Research Articles

Mick Burrs was a Canadian poet who lived in Toronto, Ontario. He was born and raised in California, and after leaving the United States to avoid the Vietnam War, he spent much of his life in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. He won the 1998 Saskatchewan Book Award for Poetry for a volume of his collected works, Variations on the Birth of Jacob. This book was published under his birth name, Steven Michael Berzensky, as was a comprehensive collection of his poetry, The Names Leave the Stones: Poems New and Selected. He was the former editor of Grain magazine. He died on April 20, 2021, at the age of 81 just 10 days after his birthday.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rhea Tregebov</span> Canadian poet, novelist and childrens writer

Rhea Tregebov is a Canadian poet, novelist and children's writer who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. In her work as teacher and editor, she has mentored and inspired generations of Canadian poets. Her poetry is characterized by a strong poetic voice, intellectual honesty, and a compassionate engagement with the extraordinary lived experience of “ordinary” life. An early influence was Pablo Neruda: “And it was at that age … Poetry arrived/in search of me. […] there I was without a face/and it touched me.”. Tregebov is also the author of two novels, Rue des Rosiers and The Knife-Sharpener’s Bell, as well as five popular children’s picture books.

Linda Aksomitis, née Linda Demyen is a Canadian author specialising in children's and travel literature, as well as nonfiction about the history of the snowmobile. She is a former president of the Saskatchewan Writer's Guild.

Gloria Sawai, born Gloria Ruth Ostrem in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was an American-born fiction author, based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. She died on 20 July 2011.

Alice Major is a Canadian poet, writer, and essayist, who served as poet laureate of Edmonton, Alberta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Scott Tysdal</span> Canadian poet and film director (born 1978)

Daniel Scott Tysdal is a Canadian poet and film director whose work approaches the lyric mode with an experimental spirit. In June 2007, Tysdal received the ReLit Award for Poetry.

Mark Abley is a Canadian poet, journalist, editor and nonfiction writer. Both his poetry and several nonfiction books express his interest in endangered languages. He has also published numerous magazine articles. In November 2022 Abley was awarded an honorary D.Litt. by the University of Saskatchewan for his writing career and for his services to Canadian literature.

Coteau Books was a small, non-profit literary press based in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. It was established in 1975 by Bob Currie, Gary Hyland, Barbara Sapergia and Geoffrey Ursell when they realized that there was little opportunity for Saskatchewan writers to get published, especially first-time authors. The press closed its doors and entered bankruptcy protection in February 2020.

Alison Calder is a Canadian poet, literary critic and educator.

Ven Begamudré is a Canadian poet, short story writer and novelist. He was born in Bangalore, India and moved with his family to Canada when he was six. During his writing career, he has been a part of six writers-in-residence. He currently divides his time between western Canada and the island of Bali.

Beth Goobie is a Canadian poet and fiction writer.

Barbara Kathleen Nickel is a Canadian poet.

Monty Reid is a Canadian poet.

Maureen Scott Harris is a Canadian poet.

Sheri Benning is a Canadian writer from Saskatchewan, Canada. Her two books of poetry, Earth After Rain and Thin Moon Psalm have garnered numerous awards. Her poetry, essays, and fiction have also appeared in many Canadian literary journals and anthologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judith Silverthorne</span> Canadian writer

Judith Silverthorne, née Judith Iles is a Canadian author specializing in children's literature, as well as nonfiction about historical Saskatchewan woodworkers and furniture makers, and an immigrant potter, Peter Rupchan.

Geoffrey Ursell was a Canadian writer, who won the Books in Canada First Novel Award in 1985 for his novel Perdue, or How the West Was Lost.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louise Bernice Halfe</span>

Louise Bernice Halfe, is a Cree poet and social worker from Canada. Halfe's Cree name is Sky Dancer. At the age of seven, she was forced to attend Blue Quills Residential School in St. Paul, Alberta. Halfe signed with Coteau Books in 1994 and has published four books of poetry: Bear Bones & Feathers (1994), Blue Marrow (1998/2005), The Crooked Good (2007) and Burning in this Midnight Dream (2016). Halfe uses code-switching, white space, and the stories of other Cree women in her poetry. Her experience at Blue Quills continues to influence her work today. Halfe's books have been well-received and have won multiple awards.

Marie Elyse St. George is a Canadian artist and poet. She is known for her paintings, drawings, prints, mixed media work and poetry.

Lisa Bird-Wilson is a Métis and nêhiyaw writer from Saskatchewan.

References

  1. Boyd, Colin (16 December 2013). "Anne Szumigalski". The Canadian Encyclopedia . Archived from the original on 13 April 2023. Retrieved 21 May 2023.
  2. 1 2 "University of Saskatchewan Special Collections Anne Szumilgalski website". Archived from the original on 3 May 2016. Retrieved 8 May 2009.
  3. http://www.mbwriter.mb.ca/index.php/szumigalksiSCHL/%5B%5D
  4. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 6 July 2011. Retrieved 8 May 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 6 July 2007. Retrieved 9 May 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  6. "Saskatchewan Writers' Guild". skwriter.com. Archived from the original on 6 March 2016. Retrieved 6 March 2016.
  7. William H. New (2002). Encyclopedia of literature in Canada. University of Toronto Press. p. 80. ISBN   978-0-8020-0761-2.