Helena Coleman



Helena Jane Coleman (1860 - 1953) was a Canadian teacher and musician, and a minor Canadian poet.

Life
Helena Coleman was born and raised in Newcastle, Ontario, the daughter of Emmeline Maria Adams (the sister of education reformer Mary Electa Adams) and Rev. Francis Coleman, a Methodist clergyman. Her brother, A.P. Coleman, was a well-known geologist.

She was educated at the Ontario Ladies' College in Whitby, Ontario. She graduated with a Gold Medal in Music. She became a teacher in the College's Music Department, and (except for a one-year leave of absence to pursue post-graduate work in Germany) served as Department Head from 1880 to 1892.

Later she lived with her brother, A.P. Coleman, in Toronto and at their summer cottage, "Pinehurst," in the Thousand Islands.

Coleman wrote poetry for years, publishing in The Atlantic Monthly  and other magazines; however, as she used pseudonyms, only a few intimate friends knew. Pseudonyms she is known to use include: Caleb Black, Catherine G. Brown, H.C., Helen Gray Cone, H.S.C., Hollis Cattwin, L.D. Clark, Winifred Cotter, Winnifred Cotter, A.T. Cottingham, Winnifred Ford, C.H., Mrs. R.H. Hudson, Hollis Hume, Shadwell Jones, Annie Lloyd, M.D. Merrivale, Helen Saxon, Helen A. Saxon, Emily A. Sykes, and Gwendolen Woodworth.

In 1906 her first collection of poetry, Songs and Sonnets, was published by the Tennyson Club of Toronto. It was well received by the critics, and a second printing soon followed.

Coleman contributed poems to a large number of Canadian and American journals. She was a member of the Authors Society, the Canadian Authors Association, the Rose Society, and the University Women's Club in Toronto.

In 1917 Coleman released a book of war poetry, Marching Men: War Verse, widely praised for its "patriotic fervor."

Songs, a selection from her earlier works, was published in 1937.

Writing
Reviewing Coleman's first book, Songs and Sonnets, in the Canadian Magazine, W.T. Allison wrote: "Her command of rhythm is very pleasing, and because of her love of Latinized English, reaches a certain degree of opulence which cannot fail to give any lover of cadence great delight. Yet in spite of her love for colour and sonority our new poet is at all times eminently clear." He added: "Miss Coleman has much in common with Matthew Arnold. Just as he did, she knows how to combine concreteness of colour, with a certain noble simplicity and restraint of style, and like Arnold, she likes best of all to devote her thought to the deep things of the soul.... She knows life in its sadness, gladness and beauty, and sings of it in relation to Nature and to God."

While her second book, Marching Men, was widely celebrated for its patriotic sentiments, The Rebel Magazine at the University of Toronto praised it for going beyond simple patriotism, calling the book the sort of "true poetry [that] begins to issue forth" in a crisis "like the blood of the grapes, crushed in the winepress of affliction."

Poetry

 * Songs and Sonnets. Toronto: William Briggs, 1906.
 * Marching Men: War Verses. London, Toronto: J.M. Dent, 1917.
 * Songs: Being a Selection of Earlier Sonnets and Lyrics. Toronto: Ryerson, 1937.

Stories

 * Sheila and Others: the Simple Annals of an Unromantic Household. Toronto: E.P. Dutton, 1920. as "Winifred Cotter."