Dennis Lee



Dennis Beynon Lee, OC, MA (born August 31, 1939) is a Canadian poet, teacher, editor, and critic born in  Toronto, Ontario. He is also a children's poet, well known for his book of verse, Alligator Pie.

Life
After attending high school at the University of Toronto Schools, Lee received bachelor's and master's degrees in English from the University of Toronto. He taught English at the University's Victoria College from 1963 until 1967, at which time he became 'resource person' for Rochdale College.

Also in 1967, Lee co-founded House of Anansi Press with Dave Godfrey, and served as its editorial director until 1972. From 1974 to 1979 he was a consulting editor for Macmillan of Canada.

He was a writer in residence at Trent University in 1975, and at the University of Toronto in 1978-1979.

Writing
In 1967 House of Anansi published Lee's first book of poetry, Kingdom of Absence, "a sequence of 43 sonnet variations." Lee followed that up the next year with a long meditative poem, Civil Elegies. (Civil Elegies and Other Poems, a revised version of that work collected with some newer poetry, won Lee the Governor General's Award in 1972.)

Lee began writing for children as part of his goal of "Reclaiming language and liberating imagination;" he "tries to free Canadian children from a colonial mentality by creating poems rooted in the words and activities of their everyday lives, poems which encourage free imaginative play." His most famous work is the rhymed Alligator Pie (1974). He also wrote the lyrics to the theme song of the 1980s television show Fraggle Rock and, with Philip Balsam composing, many of the other songs for that show. Balsam and Lee also wrote the songs for the television special The Tale of the Bunny Picnic. Lee is co-writer of the story for the film Labyrinth.

"On the adult level," says The Canadian Encyclopedia, "roots and play (including lovemaking) are further explored in Part I of The Gods (1979). Part 2, The Death of Harold Ladoo (1976), is an elegy for Lee's friend, a writer murdered in 1973.... The poem also meditates on the roles of mystical epiphanies and of artistic creation in its attempts to come to term with the problems of the contemporary world."

Lee is the also the co-editor of The University Game (1968, with H. Edelman), "in which he calls for freedom from inhibiting educational institutions" a la Rochdale; and the author of Savage Fields: An Essay in Literature and Cosmology (1977), which "explores the interrelationship between 'earth' and 'world' -- ie nature and civilization, or instinct and consciousness -- all with particular application to a critical analysis of works by Michael Ondaatje and Leonard Cohen."

Recognition
In addition to his 1972 Governor General's Award, Lee twice won the CACL Bronze Medal for a children's book: in 1974 for Alligator Pie, and in 1977 for Garbage Delight. He also won the Vicky Metcalf Award, for body of work for children, in 1986, and the Mr. Christie's Book Award (for The Ice Cream Store) in 1991.

In 1993, Lee was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 1995 he received an honorary doctorate from Trent University, and won a Toronto Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement.

In 2001 Lee became Toronto's first Poet Laureate, serving in that position until 2004.

An example of Lee's verse for children
William Lyon Mackenzie King Sat in the middle and played with string, And he loved his mother like anything-- William Lyon Mackenzie King.

Adult poetry

 * Kingdom of Absence. Toronto: Anansi, 1967.
 * Civil Elegies. Toronto: Anansi, 1968.
 * Civil Elegies and Other Poems. Toronto: Anansi, 1972.
 * Not Abstract Harmonies But. Vancouver: Kanchenjunga Press, 1974. (Chapbook)
 * The Death of Harold Ladoo. Vancouver: Kanchenjunga Press, 1976. (Chapbook)
 * The Gods. Vancouver: Kanchenjunga Press, 1978. (Chapbook)
 * The Gods. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1979.
 * The Difficulty of Living on Other Planets. Toronto: Macmillan, 1987. Illus. Alan Daniel.
 * Riffs. London, Ont.: Brick Books, 1993.
 * Nightwatch: New & Selected Poems 1968-1996. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1996.
 * Un. Toronto: Anansi, 2003.
 * So cool. Dennis Lee ; illustrations by Maryann Kovalski. Toronto : Key Porter, 2004.
 * The Bard of the Universe. Kentville, NS: Gaspereau Press, 2007.
 * YesNo. Toronto: Anansi, 2007.

Adult prose

 * Savage Fields: An Essay in Literature and Cosmology. Toronto: Anansi, 1977.
 * Reading Adonis. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1987. (Chapbook)
 * Body Music. Toronto: Anansi, 1998.

Children's poetry

 * Wiggle to the Laundromat. Toronto: New Press, 1970. Ill. Charles Pachter.
 * Nicholas Knock and Other People. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1974. Ill. Frank Newfeld.
 * Alligator Pie. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1974. Ill. Frank Newfeld.
 * Garbage Delight. Toronto: Macmillan, 1977. Ill. Frank Newfeld
 * The Ordinary Bath. Toronto: Magook, 1979. Ill. Jon McKee.
 * Jelly Belly. Toronto: Macmillan, 1983. Ill. Juan Wijngaard.
 * Lizzy's Lion. Toronto: Stoddart, 1984. Ill. Marie-Louise Gay.
 * The Dennis Lee Big Book. Toronto: Gage, 1985. Ill. Barbara Klunder.
 * The Ice Cream Store. Toronto: HarperCollins, 1991. Ill. David NcPhail.
 * Dinosaur Dinner (with a Slice of Alligator Pie). New York: Random House, 1997. Selected by Jack Prelutsky. Ill. Debbie Tilley.
 * Bubblegum Delicious - 2000
 * The cat and the wizard. Dennis Lee ; illustrations by Gillian Johnson. Toronto : Key Porter Books, 2001.

Edited

 * An Anthology of Verse. Edited by Lee and Roberta Charlesworth. Toronto: Oxford, 1964.
 * The University Game. Essays Edited by Howard Adelman & Dennis Lee. Toronto: Anansi, 1968.
 * T.O. Now; the Young Toronto Poets. Toronto: Anansi, 1968.
 * The New Canadian Poets, 1970-1985. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1985.

Except where noted, bibliographic information courtesy Canadian Poetry Online.

Audio / video

 * Dennis Lee [selections].. [sound recording]. Toronto: High Barnet, 1970.
 * Alligator Pie and Other Poems. [sound recording]. New York: Caedmon, 1978.