• 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: February 2018

Gleanings (1925, 1931, 1942), by Margaret Vance Rody

28 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by Karyn Huenemann in Fiction and other arts, Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

This title rests in a bit of a quagmire. I was reviewing our old entry on Margaret Vance Rody, and was troubled by some inconsistencies. “Margaret,” we inform the public, “published several editions of her two books of verses herself, hoping to augment her income.” Looking through the little that can be found online and in the published sources on our shelves, I discovered that the two titles—Gleanings and Beauty and Thought in Verse—are often considered to be subsequent editions of more-or-less the same collection of poems. The truth is a bit more complicated than that.

Margaret Vance Rody self-published Gleanings in 1925, when she working as a telephone operator in Kamsack, Saskatchewan. The poems included therein were apparently all published in the Kamsack Times initially. This claim is supported by the fact that the second edition of Gleanings was published by the Kamsack Times in 1931. We do not have a copy of the 1925 first edition: as far as the SFU Library specialists can discover, none is extant. We do have the 1931 edition, though, so I listed the poems included in the table below.

In 1942, Margaret Vance Rody released two more volumes of poetry: another collection entitled Gleanings, published by “The Poets Press, The National Poetry Center, ‘Radio City’, Rockefeller Center, New York”; and Beauty and Thought in Verse, published in Vancouver, BC, at the Capitol Printers. The 1942 edition of Gleanings is listed as a “First Edition”; Beauty and Thought in Verse, on the other hand, includes a different publication history: “Published under title Gleanings: 1st edition January 1925; 2nd edition November 1931; 3rd edition February 1942.” It is fairly obvious that what we have here is the difference between the Canadian publication history (including the name change) and the American publication history (which includes only the one printing). Part of this can be explained by the hand-written note in the copy of Gleanings (1942) that Margaret Roy gifted to the University of British Columbia in 1945:

These poems were published in New York after being told by a publisher in Vancouver that Canadian poetry was not wanted by Canadian people.—Margaret Vance Rody

So apparently, shortly after the publication and success (I assume) of the American edition, Margaret Vance Rody was able to sell the idea to a publisher in Vancouver more effectively. It would be interesting to know how that conversation went, and what guided the decisions regarding which poems to include in which editions, for the poems included in the three extant volumes differ significantly. There are drastic changes between the 1931 and 1942 Canadian editions, including the excising of 19 titles. With the 1942 editions, the 27-poem American edition is more-or-less a subset of the 53-poem Canadian edition: only three poems—”Some Day,” “Wreckage of War,” and “You are so Dear to Me”—are unique to the American edition.

Here’s a chart, including—as far as I can determine, as I do not have the complete volumes in my hands—places where poems have been renamed between editions.

Title Gleanings 1931 Gleanings 1942 Beauty and Thought in Verse 1942
A Grandmother to her Soldier Grandsons Included
A Lake Madge Reverie Included Included
A Letter From the Frozen North How Santa’s Queen of the Fairies Brought a Letter from the Frozen North Included
A Message from Santa Included
A Problem Included It is to Laugh: A Problem Included
A Reply Included Included
A Wish
A-Rowing on Lake Madge Included
And Children Starve Today Included Included Included
And Their Reply (second part of “To the Glorious Dead”?) Included
Bobbing the Baby’s Hair Included
Card of Thanks Included Included
Christmas Bells Included
Christmas Greetings – 1925 Included
Fragments Included Hope: Fragments Included
Freedom Included
Garden Gossip Included Included
Gleanings Included Included
God’s Covenant Included Included
Gracie Fields Included
Grey Eyes and Blue Included Included
His Mother’s Prayer Included Included Included
Hope Included Hope: Some Day Hope Someday
If You Could Know Included
Leaves Included
Leaves of Memory Included
Little Bare Feet Included Included
Little Black Bear Included Included
Love’s Not Always Blind Included Contrasts: Love’s Not Always Blind Included
Love’s Reverie Included Included
Maudlin Sentiment Included
Memories of Childhood Included Included
Message of the Pansy Included Included Included
Mother of Mine Included
My Irish Flower Included Included
My Lodge Included Included Included
My Sister’s Keeper Included Included
Ode to Spring Included
Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men Included
Poppy Day Included
Poverty Included
Prairie Winds Included Included
Redemptive Love Included
Reflections of an Old, Old House Included Included
Remembrance Included Included
Roses of Vancouver Included
Silken Hose It Is To Laugh: Silken Hose Included
Some Day Included
Somehow or Other Included
Sonnet Contrasts: Sonnet Included
Spotted Curtains Included
Spotted Curtains Included
Sunshine vs. Raindrops Included Included Included
The Anthem Included Included
The Beauty Seeker Included
The Call of the West Included Included
The Canadian Hamlet To Canadian Hamlet Included
The Kingdom of Right Included
The Palace and the Cottage Included
The Price of War Included Is this the same as “Wreckage of War”?
The Switchers Included
The Trials of Life Included
The Wood Folks’ Anthem Included Included
The Wreckage of War Included
To A Bride Included Included Included
To a Little Bird Included
To Robert Burns Included Included
To the Glorious Dead Included Included
To the Pioneer Campers of Lake Madge Included
To Wilhelmina Stitch Included Included
Transformation Included
Wee Marion and the Big Black Night Included
Wishes Included
Wolves of the Night Included
Wreckage of War Included
You Are So Dear To Me Included
Your Mother’s Love Included Included

“Moonlight Night,” by Lois H. Gilpin

20 Tuesday Feb 2018

Posted by Karyn Huenemann in Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Gilpin, Lois H. “Moonlight Night.” The Arbutus Tree [Author, 1926]: 12.

Kenilworth and Other Poems (1934), by Alice Margaret Rowan Gray

14 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by Karyn Huenemann in Digital text, Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Rowan, Alice Margaret. Kenilworth and Other Poems (Winnipeg: Peerless, 1934).

I am currently digging through a manila folder that I have found, buried on a shelf, labelled “Insufficient Information” back in the 1980s when the initial project was amassing data through letters and visits to archives. I have discovered more information about a number of authors, but not much about Alice Margaret Rowan Gray, except that she lived in Winnipeg at least between 1920 and 1940, had a BA from the University of Manitoba, and was a member of the amateur theatre world in Winnipeg, where she is listed as Alice Rowan-Gray. She published two books of poetry: her first slim volume, entitled simply Poems, was published in 1925; her second (perhaps last), Kenilworth and Other Poems, was published in 1934.

About the title poem, “Kenilworth,” the author tells us:

This fantasy was written in 1931, two years after my first visit to Kenilworth, on which occasion our guide was an old actor, whose eloquence cast a spell upon us, and re-built for me, at least, the mouldering ruins of what was once the lovely home of Leicester in the days of the ‘Virgin Queen.’

In the folder I found, to my delight, a photocopy of the entirety of the latter volume, which I share with you here, in page images and a searchable pdf.

 

 

“A Friend,” by Dorothy Brown

04 Sunday Feb 2018

Posted by Karyn Huenemann in Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Brown, Dorothy. “A Friend.” Winnipeg Free Press (4 February 1939): 6-7.

All we knew about Dorothy Brown is that she published a poem, “Skunk,” in Canadian Forum. Now we also know that she was from Winnipeg, and published this poem as a teenager. As with so many of our authors, information trickles in slowly. Perhaps some day we will know more about Dorothy …


Blogroll

  • Female Poets of the First World War

Links to other projects

  • American Verse Project
  • Canada's Early Women Writers at CWRC
  • Canada's Early Women Writers at SFU
  • Canadian Magazines
  • Canadian War Brides of the First World War
  • Canadian Writers Abroad
  • Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory
  • Database of Canada's Early Women Writers
  • Magazines, Travel, and Middle-brow Culture in Canada, 1920-1960
  • Orlando: Women's Writing in the British Isles
  • Winnifred Eaton Archive
  • Women in Book History, edited by Cait Croker and Kate Ozment

Pages

  • 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

Posts and poems

  • December 2022
  • September 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • September 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • July 2011
  • April 2011

Visitors

  • 148,931 hits

Canada\’s Early Women Poets

RSS Feed RSS - Posts

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 730 other subscribers

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Canada's Early Women Writers: Authors lists
    • Join 248 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Canada's Early Women Writers: Authors lists
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...