Gwendolyn Margaret MacEwen (1 September 1941 - 29 November 1987) was a Canadian novelist and poet. During her lifetime she wrote 26 books. MacEwen was born in Toronto, Ontario. Her first poem was published in The Canadian Forum when she was only 17, and she left school at 18 to pursue a writing career. She married poet Milton Acorn in 1962, although they divorced two years later. MacEwen won the Governor General's Award in 1969 for her poetry collection The Shadow Maker. She won her second Governor General's Award in 1987 for Afterworlds. MacEwen was regarded as one of Canada's greatest poets, whose work was visionary, witty, pithy and drew readily on themes and images of magic and mythology. She served as writer in tesidence at the University of Western Ontario in 1985, and the University of Toronto in 1986 and 1987. MacEwen died in 1987, at the age of 46, of health problems related to alcoholism. Rosemary Sullivan published a biography of MacEwen, , in 1995, which won the Governor General's Award for non-fiction. Tributes to her in fiction have also been published by Margaret Atwood (the short story "Isis in Darkness") and Linda Griffiths (the play Alien Creature). As well, a park in Toronto has been named in her honour.
Bibliography
- Selah Aleph Press, Toronto(1961)
- The Drunken Clock (1961)
- The Rising Fire (1963)
- Julian the Magician (1963)
- A Breakfast for Barbarians (1966)
- The Shadow-Maker (1969)
- King of Egypt, King of Dreams (1971)
- Noman (1972)
- The Armies of the Moon (1972)
- Magic Animals: Selected Poems Old and New (1974)
- Mermaids and Ikons: A Greek Summer (1978)
- The Chocolate Moose (1979)
- The Trojan Women (1979)
- The Fire-Eaters (1982)
- The T. E. Lawrence Poems (1982)
- The Honey Drum (1983)
- Noman's Land (1985)
- Earth-Light: Selected Poetry 1963-1982 (1982)
- The Man with Three Violins HMS Press (Toronto) ISBN 0-919957-83-8 1986
- Afterworlds (1987)
- Dragon Sandwiches (1987)
Discography
- Celebration: Famous Canadian Poets CD Canadian Poetry Association — 2001 ISBN 1-55253-032-9 (CD#3) ( with Raymond Souster )
