Livesay, Dorothy (1909–1996)

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Livesay, Dorothy (1909–1996)

Canadian poet. Born 1909 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada; died 1996 in Victoria, British Columbia; dau. of John Frederick Bligh Livesay and Florence Randal; attended universities of Toronto, Sorbonne and British Columbia; m. Duncan Macnair, 1937 (died 1959); children: 2.

Joined Communist Party and worked as journalist, teacher, and activist; taught in Zambia (1959–63) and was writer-in-residence at several universities; was founding member of League of Canadian Poets and named Officer of the Order of Canada (1987); works include Green Pitcher (1928), Signpost (1934), Poems for People (1947), Call My People Home (1950), The Unquiet Bed (1967), The Documentaries (1968), Ice Age (1975), The Phases of Love (1983), Beginnings (1988), The Woman I Am (1991), and Archive for Our Times: Previously Uncollected and Unpublished Poems of Dorothy Livesay (1998); also wrote Husband: A Novella (1990) and edited poetry journal Contemporary Verse 2.