Constance Woodrow

by George Dance

Constance Woodrow (1899 - August 1, 1937) was an English-born Canadian poet.

Life
Born Constance Davies in England, she lived most of her life in Toronto, Ontario , and was manager of Britnell's, at the time Toronto's most prestigious bookstore.

John Coldwell Adams, a biographer of Charles G.D. Roberts, has written that Roberts was infatuated with her for a time in the 1920s, describing her as "a young married poet in Toronto, who rhapsodized about her 'Celtic Heart' and who appears to have been an outrageous flirt. Outwardly, she possessed all those characteristics that Roberts admired most, but in temperament she was quixotic and unpredictable. Although she shamelessly led him on from the moment she met him, the inconstant Constance inevitably turned her attentions elsewhere after a few months." Roberts wrote the Introduction to her first collection of poetry, The Captive Gypsy (1926).

Recognition
Her poem "Defeat" was set to music for a capella chorus by composer Ty Kroll in 2004.

Poetry

 * The Captive Gypsy. Toronto: Balk-Preston, 1928.
 * The Celtic Heart. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1929.

Translated

 * Bugnet, Georges. Nipsya. New York: L. Carrier, 1929.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the University of Toronto.