Anne Szumigalski

Anne Szumigalski (1922-1999). Courtesy the Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan.

Anne Szumigalski SOM (January 3, 1922 - April 22, 1999) was a Canadian poet.

Life

She was born Anne Howard Davis in London, England, and grew up mostly in a Hampshire village. She served with the Red Cross as a medical auxiliary officer and interpreter during World War II, following British Army forces in 1944-5 across parts of newly liberated Europe.

In 1946, she married Jan Szumigalski, (died 1985) a former officer in the Polish Army, and lived with him in north Wales before immigrating to Canada in 1951. They had 4 children: Kate (born 1946), Elizabeth (1947), Tony (1961) and Mark (1963). She spent the rest of her life in Saskatchewan, initially in the remote Big Muddy valley, then in Saskatoon.

Writing

Most of her 15 books are collections of poetry, but she also wrote a memoir, The Voice, the Word, the Text (1990) as well as Z., a play about the Holocaust. Her first book, Woman Reading in Bath (1974), was published by Doubleday in New York. Thereafter she made the deliberate choice to publish her work with Canadian presses. She helped found the Saskatchewan Writers Guild and the literary journal Grain, and served as a mentor to many younger writers.

Szumigalski combined a love of the Canadian prairies with a passion for language, a faith in poetry, and an intimate knowledge of literary tradition. She was a great admirer of William Blake, some of whose visionary qualities appear in her own work.

Her finest work is collected in a big volume of selected poems, On Glassy Wings (Coteau, 1997). In 2006 her literary executor Mark Abley edited a volume of her posthumous poems, When Earth Leaps Up. A final posthumous book is expected in 2010.

Prairie Fire: "Z is ...in my estimation, a major dramatic achievement. Szumigalski’s integration of poetry, dance and drama is so effective that she has managed to put an experience on stage which not only makes you think about the horrors of the past but also about the callousness and dangers of the present. She sounds a wake-up bell, telling us to stay vigilant."

George Elliott Clarke: "I think that Anne Szumigalski deserves to be heard, sounded, because she represents the highest achievement of the English-Canadian mystical oracular poet, perhaps equaled only by Gwendolyn MacEwen. Too, her defence of spoken word aligns her with the only poetic movement in Canada that is fully of the people, by the people, for the people. As a poet of mystical bent, she is a bridge between the Blake mode and its strongest Anglo-Canadian practitioners, helping again to reinforce the non-academic side of our mainly academically-oriented verse. Her fascination with print and art highlights the possibility for other “illuminated books” in our culture, while her passionate religious philosophy connects her to such epochal figures as Louis Riel. As well, her union of dance and poetry may reinvigorate our drama, while her status as immigrant aligns her with that strong proportion of Canadian literature created by foreign-born writers. Finally, as a woman whose feminism is both complex and natural, she opens up understandings of relationships beyond gender clichés. She is a woman British Prairie oracular poet who belongs transformatively to the entire English-speaking world. Poets, read her."

Recognition

In 1989, she was awarded the Saskatchewan Order of Merit. She received many other honors over the years.

Her 1995 collection Voice, featuring paintings by Marie Elyse St George, won the Governor General's Award for English language poetry.

The Manitoba Writers Guild has set up a scholarship in her name.

The Saskatchewan Book Award for Poetry is named for her.

Publications

Poetry

• Woman Reading in Bath: Poems. Toronto & Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974. ISBN 978-0-38502743-4
• Wild Man's Butte: A stereophonic poem (with Terrence Heath). Moose Jaw, SK: Coteau Books, 1979.
• A Game of Angels. Winnipeg, MB: Turnstone Press, 1980. ISBN 978-0-88801044-5
• Doctrine of Signatures. Saskatoon, SK: Fifth House, 1983. ISBN 978-0-92007900-3
• Risks: A poem (illustrated by Jim Westergard). Red Deer, AB: Red Deer College Press, 1983. ISBN 978-0-88995023-8
• Instar: Poems and stories. Red Deer, AB: Red Deer College Press, 1985. ISBN 978-0-88995024-5
• Dogstones: Selected and new poems. Saskatoon, SK: Fifth House, 1986. ISBN 978-0-92007921-8
• Journey/Journée (with Terrence Heath; with drawings & engravings by Jim Westergard). Red Deer, AB: Red Deer College Press, 1988. ISBN 978-0-88995029-0
• Rapture of the Deep (with paintings by G.N. Louise Jonasson). Regina, SK: Coteau Books, 1991. ISBN 978-1-55050023-3
• Voice (illustrated by Marie Elyse St. George). Regina, SK: Coteau Books, 1995. ISBN 978-1-55050089-9
• On Glassy Wings: Poems new & selected. Regina, SK: Coteau Books, 1997. ISBN 978-1-55050114-8
• When Earth Leaps Up. London, ON: Brick Books, 2006. ISBN 978-1-89407852-8
• A Peeled Wand: Selected poems. Winnipeg, MB: Signature Editions, 2011. ISBN 9781897109472

Play

• Z: A meditation on oppression, desire, and freedom. Regina, SK: Coteau Books, 1995. ISBN 978-1-55050080-6

Short fiction

• Fear of Knives: A book of fables. Saskatoon, SK: Hagios Press, 2000.

Non-fiction

• The Word, the Voice, the Text: The life of a writer. Saskatoon, SK: Fifth House, 1990. ISBN 9780920079652
• Sermons on Stones: Words and images. Saskatoon, SK: Hagios Press, 1997. ISBN 978-0-96822560-8
• A Woman Clothed in Words. Regina, SK: Coteau Books, 2010. ISBN 9781550504781
• BOooOM (with Terrence Health and Eleanor Pearson). Saskatchewan: Saskatchewan Arts Board, 1973.

Edited

• The Best of Grain: Volumes I-VII (edited by Anne Szumigalski, Caroline Heath, & Don Kerr). Regina, SK: Saskatchewan Writers Guild, 1980.
• Heading Out: The new Saskatchewan poets (edited by Don Kerr & Anne Szumigalski). Moose Jaw, SK: Coteau Books, 1986. ISBN 9780919926585
• Rita Schilling, Sudeten in Saskatchewan: A way to be free. St. Walburg, SK: Saskatchewan German Council, 1989.
• Caroline Heath, Why Couldn't You See Blue?. Regina, SK: Coteau Books, 1994. ISBN 9781550500646

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy Brock University.

See also

• Saskatchewan poets
• List of Canadian poets
• Timeline of Canadian poetry

References

Fonds

• [https://www.uregina.ca/library/services/archives/collections/writing-theatre/szumigalski.html Anne Szumigalski papers at University of Regina
• Anne Szumigalski collection at University of Saskatchewan

External links

Poems

• "A Child and His Mother Camp Out on a Cool Night"

Audio / video

• Anne Szumigalski poems at YouTube

Books

• Anne Szumigalski at Amazon.com

About

• Anne Szumigalski at Canadian Women Poets
• Anne Szumigalski in the Canadian Encyclopedia
• Anne Szumigalski in the Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan
• About Anne, Anne Szumigalski Collection, Mark Abley, University of Saskatchewan]

Etc.

• Grain