Dorothy Livesay

Dorothy Livesay was one of the leading poets of her generation. Born in Winnipeg in 1909, her career spanned six decades. Known for her passion, political engagement, and the craft and beauty of her poetry, she wrote of worker exploitation, poverty, and women’s rights, among other concerns—in haiku, lyric, sonnet, dramatic monologue, and documentary poems. Livesay was educated at University of Toronto and the Sorbonne in Paris. Her first collection, Green Pitcher, came out in 1928, when she was just 19. She was active in left-wing politics; worked as a social worker; and won Governor General's Awards for her poetry collections Day and Night (1944) and Poems for People (1947). A founding member of the League of Canadian Poets who wrote 24 collections of poetry, Livesay was also a prolific journalist, literary critic, writer of short fiction, and author of the acclaimed memoir Right Hand Left Hand: A True Life of the Thirties.