• Our project
  • How to use our site
  • Authors lists
    • Authors completed
    • Authors to be included
    • Author “snapshots”
    • Authors to be evaluated
    • Authors using pseudonyms
    • Resource list
    • Authors not included (for researchers)
  • Comprehensive Index of Contributors to the Crucible Magazine, 1932-1943
  • Index of Female Contributors to The Canadian Poetry Magazine, 1936-1950
  • A series of lists
    • Canadian periodicals online at ECO
    • A complete list of Ryerson Poetry Chapbooks, 1925-1962
      • Ryerson Poetry Chapbook 4: The Captive Gypsy (1926), by Constance Davies-Woodrow
      • Ryerson Poetry Chapbook 5: The Ear Trumpet (1926), by Annie Charlotte Dalton
      • Ryerson Poetry Chapbook 77: Songs, Being a Selection of Earlier Sonnets and Lyrics (1937), by Helena Coleman
    • Pseudonyms: Known and unknown
    • Some anonymous texts online at ECO
    • Women of Canada (1930)
  • Resource websites

Canada's Early Women Writers: Authors lists

~ A growing list of Canada's English-language women writers from the beginning to 1950

Canada's Early Women Writers: Authors lists

Monthly Archives: April 2012

“An Old Map,” by Mary Quayle Innis

29 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by Karyn Huenemann in Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Innis, Mary Quayle. “An Old Map.” Canadian Mercury (Jan 1929): 29-30.

An Old Map

With a small compass and a ship
No larger than we use for pleasure
On land-locked bays, he tried the seas
And storm was all he found of treasure.

This map his guide—here a strange fish,
A dancing dolphin, or the leer
Of the sea serpent, and there writ
The ominous legend “dragons here.”

There cannibals infest a coast,
Here looms a smoking mountain cone,
But these he spurned and set his sails
For the broad blankness marked “unknown.”

A poem by Kate Seymour MacLean–April 28

28 Saturday Apr 2012

Posted by Karyn Huenemann in Poetry

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MacLean, Kate Seymour. [Entry for April 28]. Canadian Birthday Book. Ed. “Seranus” [Susan Frances Harrison]. Toronto: Robinson, 1887.

“Last Hour,” by Constance Davies Woodrow

27 Friday Apr 2012

Posted by Karyn Huenemann in Poetry

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Woodrow, Constance Davies. “Last Hour.” Canadian Mercury (Mar. 1929): 81.

Last Hour

Let there be only gladness in my going,
Though late of soon the inevitable call;
And if there be no future for my knowing,
Such sorry jest will touch me not at all.

For I shall be beyond the jesters’ seeking,
Beyond the spite and slander of my foes—
Ah, grief to them, that all their idle speaking
Should be as breath on every wind that blows!

Be mine the joy of birds that, tired of flying,
Behold at last the portals of the South;
Be mine nor prayers nor sorrow for the dying,
But lovers’ kisses warm upon my mouth!

Fill my last hour with song and lightest laughter:
My lovers, all your sweetest lies retell!
The, Death, your hand into the dark Hereafter!
Then, lovers, friends, and foes, a gay farewell!

“Mushrooms,” by Ermina Carpenter Holland

25 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by Karyn Huenemann in Poetry

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Holland, Ermina Carpenter. “Mushrooms.” Spartanburg Herald (Spartanburgh, SC) 9 June 1938: 7.

This author is a bit of an enigma. She was from Quebec, part of a relatively large family of Irish heritage. So what is her poetry doing in South Carolina? And is “Trails” a book? I can find no other evidence of it. Nor of any published book (although she did also publish in the Canadian Poetry Magazine). Nor can I find the source for “Sea Lanes,” another poem I have an image of, and would like to post, if I could only discover where it is from…

“Mushrooms” was published in Alan Creighton and Hilda Ridley’s New Canadian Anthology, also in 1938, so I am not sure which was first. Regardless, here is the poem…

Mushrooms

Slow-creeping dawn
Follows a night of rain-mist
Down the quiet pasture.

Here in a circlet of trees
That droop mist-heavy boughs,
The searcher comes upon them,
Tiny, elfin umbrellas,
Peeping through sheen of cobwebs
By the zigzag path.

And as she bends to gather them,
Slipping her pale fingers
Among their white and pink softness,
Her gray hair and eyes
Seem a part of the mist,
And her cheeks take the rose-color
Of the mushroom gills.
Then walking through deep lushness
To her lonely house,
Her skirt drips water,
But her basket brims,
Scattering wet fragrance,
And she carries it lifted
To clear the swishing grass.

Ermina Carpenter Holland, in Trails.

“They Will Come Back,” by Helen B. Anderson

22 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by Karyn Huenemann in Poetry

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Anderson, Helen B. “They Will Come Back.” Sherbrooke Telegram (25 Jan. 1934): 5.

They Will Come Back

Two excerpts by Agnes Maule Machar: April 21 and 22

21 Saturday Apr 2012

Posted by Karyn Huenemann in Poetry

≈ 1 Comment

“Fidelis” [Agnes Maule Machar]. [Entries for April 21 and April 22]. Canadian Birthday Book. Ed. “Seranus” [Susan Frances Harrison]. Toronto: Robinson, 1887.

“Spring,” by Myra Lazechko-Haas

19 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by Karyn Huenemann in Poetry

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Lazeczko [sic], Myra. “Spring.” Winnipeg Free Press (13 May 1939): 6.

I have not fixed the typo in this author’s name, as it may be a variant, or even the correct, spelling. I have, however, fixed the spelling mistake (“esctasy” for “ecstasy”) in the actual poem.

Spring

There is no welcome, though you call
At my heart’s door,
This is the sacred dwelling of
Who was before.

Spring, if you come again to me,
And time to heal.
This be the tomb, here is the cross,
And here, Love’s seal.

Lift me up to the sun, that I
Might feel God’s breath;
This is the end; and I am glad,
Come, quiet death.

I want but tranquil ecstasy,
And tears that bless…
Spring, if you come again
Bring back forgetfulness.

Little Gray Doors (1926), by Alexandrina Woods

17 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by Karyn Huenemann in Fiction and other arts, Review

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As promised, my less-than-glowing review of a children’s book by one of our authors: Little Gray Doors (1926), by Alexandrina Woods. This Alexandrina Woods (later Mrs. Doherty) is not to be confused with Alexandrina Gertrude Wood, the Saskatchewan author who wrote a number of books of poetry in the middle and second half of the twentieth century, beginning with A Handful of Lilacs and Other Poems in 1946.

Little Gray Doors (1926)

Little Gray Doors suffers from one of the predominant problems of early twentieth century literature for children: it is not only prescriptive, but premised upon guilt as a motivation for behaviour. The first four stories in the collection each show a child learning through fairly drastic means a lesson in good behaviour; the last story, “The Fairy Glen,” shows a magical visit to fairy-land given to a well-behaved child, a visit of which there is no memory on her waking.

The opening story, “Little Gray Doors,” has a naughty boy, sent to bed without his tea, suddenly and inexplicably out in the garden where he discovers a doorway in a tree truck, leading to a hallway full of little gray doors. Behind each door, he sees a different world in which the children are unhappy, mischief abounds, and chaos reigns. On the wall above each door is cryptically written L.O.P. He reaches the end of the hallway to view a final room in which a group of exhausted women, obviously mothers, sit around mending toys and clothing with tears in their eyes. At this point, he sees the full message: Land of Punishment. It is not certain to me whether the punishment is being inflicted on the children or the mothers… regardless, it is a dismal experience, and the guilt-ridden David returns gratefully to the land above, resolved to behave in an impossibly perfect manner from now on.

The stories become increasingly less traumatic as the book progresses, but none actually manage not to create a feeling of guilt in the child reader. “The Mirror” tells the metaphoric tale of a young boy who is given a mirror by his “King” (Jesus), whose face will be reflected instead of the boy’s. Each time the boy fails to behave, the mirror becomes clouded or seems cracked, until it is not longer useable. The boy must take a Pilgrim’s Progress journey back to see the King, during which he performs good deeds. The King forgives him and restores the mirror.

“The Magic Needle” teaches young Ruth to be content not knowing or understanding the whole picture of what she has been set to do; “Paternoster” helps the unnamed protagonist to understand that all creatures’ lives are worthwhile, as they are all created by “Our Father”; and “The Fairy Glen” has perfectly organized and disciplined young Betty taken on a trip to fairy-land. Here, she cannot dance without diamonds on her toes, coloured jewels on her skirt, and pearls in her hair—like the fairies—but she is granted all these riches by the small animals she has helped in her real life. In the end, though, she is returned to her bed and her jewels are taken back to fair-land, the incident is explicitly forgotten: “the clock was ticking as though nothing had happened … and the little China Shepherdess has never said one word about the strange things she saw and heard” (121).

There is nothing redeeming in the message of Little Gray Doors: no child could live up to the expectations of behaviour set by the author, and while the punishment and guilt for misbehavior is explicit, there are no positive results in the real world, for the good behaviour Betty shows.

“Wayside Flowers,” by Ada Strachan

16 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by Karyn Huenemann in Poetry

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Strachan, Ada. “Wayside Flowers.” Hepaticas in Spring. Author, 1935. 14.

 

“Finis,” by Virginia Vorys Douglas

14 Saturday Apr 2012

Posted by Karyn Huenemann in Poetry

≈ 3 Comments

Douglas, Virginia Vorys. “Finis.” Canadian Passing Show (Sept. 1930): 23.

Finis

This was the way it ended.
She said, “Marriage is to long a word.
It means forever.
And I’ll not love you forever.
I’m not like that.”
I said, “I’m like that.”
And I got my hat
And went out the door
And never went back any more.

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  • Authors lists
    • Authors completed
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  • Comprehensive Index of Contributors to the Crucible Magazine, 1932-1943
  • Index of Female Contributors to The Canadian Poetry Magazine, 1936-1950
  • A series of lists
    • Canadian periodicals online at ECO
    • A complete list of Ryerson Poetry Chapbooks, 1925-1962
      • Ryerson Poetry Chapbook 4: The Captive Gypsy (1926), by Constance Davies-Woodrow
      • Ryerson Poetry Chapbook 5: The Ear Trumpet (1926), by Annie Charlotte Dalton
      • Ryerson Poetry Chapbook 77: Songs, Being a Selection of Earlier Sonnets and Lyrics (1937), by Helena Coleman
    • Pseudonyms: Known and unknown
    • Some anonymous texts online at ECO
    • Women of Canada (1930)
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