Margaret Avison, (April 23, 1918 – July 31, 2007) was a Canadian poet who twice won Canada's Governor General's Award and has also won its Griffin Poetry Prize. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, "Her work has been praised for the beauty of its language and images." Early life and education Avison, the daughter of a Methodist minister, was born in Galt, Ontario in 1918. She moved to Regina, Saskatchewan in 1920, and Calgary, Alberta a few years later. Her family moved again, in 1930, to Toronto, Ontario. She attended Alma College, located in St. Thomas, Ontario, ca. 1935. As a teenager she was hospitalized for anorexia. She attended Victoria College at the University of Toronto, entering in 1936 and getting her B.A. in 1940 (and returning to pick up her M.A. in 1965). Before she finished her B.A. she was a published poet; the poem "Gatineau" appeared in the Canadian Poetry Magazine in 1939. Additionally, she began publishing poetry in the college magazine, Acta Victoriana. Career Besides writing poetry, Avison worked a variety of other jobs, such as working as a file clerk, proofreader, and editor. She also worked in the Registrar's Office and Library at the University of Toronto. Avison worked as a librarian, was a social worker at the Presbyterian Church Mission in Toronto, and taught at Scarborough College. She wrote most of her poetry in her spare time, and chose paying jobs which left her time to write. She didn't apply for a Canada Council grant. In 1951 Avison's junior high school textbook, History of Ontario, was published. As mentioned previously, Avison's poem "Gatineau" appeared in Canadian Poetry Magazine in 1939. In 1943, anthologist A.J.M. Smith included her poetry in his Book of Canadian Poetry. (In her autobiography, she mentions a "chaste skinny dip" with Smith.) In 1956 Avison received a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Grant; she spent eight months in the United States and was able to attend classes at the universities of Chicago and Indiana. She ghostwrote a book entitled A Doctor's Memoir and wrote her first book of poetry, Winter Sun. It was published in 1960 and won the Governor General's Award. Avison was moved by the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 and translated eight Hungarian poems that then appeared in The Plough and The Pen - this brought recognition to various twentieth century Hungarian poets. Avison successfully completed her M.A. at the University of Toronto,