Growing Poetry Newsletter – December 2012
The LCP gratefully acknowledges the financial support and assistance of all our donors.
Individual Donors:
Richard & Jessamy Stursberg
Sponsors of Jessamy Stursberg Poetry Contest for Canadian Youth, named after Jessamy Sturberg, grandmother, mother and wife. It’s purpose is to support and encourage young poets. For Jessamy, poetry was a way of understanding the world, of celebrating it’s beauties and of finding consolation in the face of it’s inevitable sorrows. It was her source of spiritual meaning. Over a very long life, Jessamy read, memorized and occasionally wrote a great deal of poetry.
Donated by: Richard Strusberg and family
Francis Sparshott was born in England on May 19, 1926. He has an M.A. from Oxford University. He came to Canada in 1950, and taught Philosophy at Victoria College, University of Toronto, from 1955 to 1991. He has been a member of the League of Canadian Poets since 1968, and was president from 1977 to 1979.
Francis was elected a Life Member of the League of Canadian Poets by his fellow members, in recognition of his contributions to poetry and to the League.
In Memoriam Donors:
Joseph Sherman
(1945 – 2006)
Joseph Howard Sherman was born in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia in 1945, and died in the Palliative Care Unit of the Prince Edward Home in Charlottetown on January 9, 2006, at the young age of 60, leaving behind his wife Ann, his adult children Rebekah and Matthew, three grandchildren, and his mother. Joe taught college English in Edmundston, New Brunswick until he became editor of Arts Atlantic in 1979 and moved with his family to Charlottetown, PEI, where he lived until his death. Joe was a member of, and ardent spokesperson for, the League of Canadian Poets for 35 years. He was also a member of the Writers’ Federations of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. These constitute some of the bare facts of his too, too short life.
Over the years Joe won several awards and expanded his interests to include all facets of the Arts. Some of those awards include the Bliss Carman Award (1968), the Royal Society of Arts Medal (1994), the Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Literary Arts, in PEI (1997), and the Betty and Morris Aaron-Henry Fuerstenberg Prize for Poetry (for American Standard and Other Poems 2002). Perhaps it was his being awarded the Order of Canada in 2003 that moved Joe most deeply. The appointment was to celebrate and recognize his devotion and contribution to the Arts in the Maritimes over the course of his 21 years as Editor of Arts Atlantic. During this time as well, Joe served a term as Vice President of the League of Canadian Poets. His love and respect for poets and poetry was an integral part of who he was.
Joseph was elected a Life Member of the League of Canadian Poets by his fellow members, in recognition of his contributions to poetry and to the League.
Donated by: Ann Sherman
George Johnston
(1913 – 2004)
Poet and teacher, George is remembered as “a modest, gentle, wise man who inspired generations of students.” He was born in Hamilton, educated at the University of Toronto and served in the RCAF as a reconnaissance pilot in Africa. He returned to the University of Toronto for graduate studies and then taught at Mount Allison University for two years before joining the faculty of Carleton University where he taught until his retirement in 1979. During that time he became recognized internationally as a translator of the Icelandic sagas.
His individual volumes of poems built him an reputation for “unostentatious but formidable artistry” and a loyal audience. His books include The Cruising Auk (1959); Home Free (1966); Happy Enough: Poems 1933-72 (1972); Taking a Grip (1979); Auk Redivivus: Selected Poems (1981); Ask Again (1984). His final collection, What is to Come, Selected and New Poems, appeared in 1996.
George was elected a Life Member of the League of Canadian Poets by his fellow members, in recognition of his contributions to poetry and to the League.
Donated by: Mark Johnston
David Huggett
(1949 – 2005)
Poet David Huggett was not widely known outside Edmonton during his lifetime. But he served the poetry community in this city well as a volunteer with organizations like the Writers Guild of Alberta and the Stroll of Poets Society.
David was born in Victoria, and made his living for a number of years as a carpenter and fisherman while developing his skills as a writer and painter. He moved to Edmonton in 1992. He died of non-Hodgkins lymphoma at a sadly early age.
David published only one collection of poetry during his lifetime. The sequence that makes up most of Gran: the maledictions is a spare, remarkable dialogue between a poet and an unlikely muse – an old, muttering woman encountered on buses and in shabby rooms, whose mouldy green ear becomes, at last, the listening ear of God.
Donated by: Alice Major
Monthly Donors:
Mary Ellen Csamer
Alice Major
Mary Lou Soutar-Hynes
Glen Sorestad
Individual Donors:
Alexis Kienlen
Alice Major
Allan Briesmaster
Anna Yin
Anne Burke
Betsy Struthers
bill bissett
Blaine Marchand
Blanca Baquero
Bruce Rice
Carole Langille
Catherine Kidd
Dave Margoshes
David Brydges
Dawna Proudman
Dennis Cooley
D.C. Reid
Dionne Brand
Dymphny Dronyk
Ed Jewinski
Elana Wolff
Elizabeth Greene
Ellen Jaffe
Sherrene Kevan
Eric Folsom
Eufemia Fantetti
Flavia Cosma
George McWhirter
Glen Sorestad
Gordon Walkinshaw
Heather Cadsby
Honey Novick
Hugh MacDonald
Ian Ferrier
James Reaney
Janice Colbert
Jenna Butler
Jessmar Investment Limited
Joanne Page
John Oughton
John Smith
Julie Berry
Karen Ouellette
Kate Braid
Kim Fahner
Kitty Lewis
Laura Lush
Luminita Suse
Marc Mullo
Maria Jacobs
Mary Dalton
Mary Ellen Csamer
Mary Lou Soutar Hynes
Mary Pinkoski
Maureen Hynes
Maxianne Berger
Michael Mirolla
Michaeline Maylor
Michelle Barker
Ralph Cunningham
Rebecca Banks
Richard Greene
Rita Bouvier
Robert Currie
Rosalee Van Stelten
Ross Leckie
Ruth Roach Pierson
Sage Hill Writing Experience
Sarah Klassen
Steven S. Heipel
Susan Briscoe
Susan Ioannou
Susan McMaster
Tim Lilburn
Yvonne Blomer