Florence Randal Livesay



Florence Randal Lindsay (November 3, 1874 - 1953) was a Canadian poet, journalist, and translator. She is best known as the mother of modernist poet Dorothy Livesay.

Life
Florence Randal was both in Compton, Quebec, the daughter of Stephen and Maria Louisa Randal. She was educated at Compton Ladies' College.

Writing
Manitoba Free Press: "We ought to be proud that the foreign folk among us have found a sympathetic voice singing in our language the songs of their fatherland. Mrs. Livesay composes as easily as William Morris. She has the lyric gift, and she has the feeling for these people that gives her verse vitality.... Her verses have the singing quality and the true feeling.... In her translations Mrs. Livesay has certainly entered into the spirit of the original, reproducing the passion, the patriotism, and the very song itself.... 'The Young Recruits' is a genuine dramatic lyric. Read it twice and you will read it three times.... She has surely captured throughout the number and variety of her translations, – love-songs, war cries, heart-break, dance – the peculiar wit and wisdom of the Ukrainian nation, the twist of the national temperament."