Harvard Square Library exists solely on the basis of donations. If you have benefitted from any of our materials, and/or if making Unitarian Universalist intellectual heritage materials widely available and free is a value to you, please donate whatever you can–every little bit helps: Donate
Dorothy Livesay, it is generally agreed, was one of the foremost Canadian poets of her generation. She was born in Winnipeg on 12 October 1909, during the first snowstorm of the season — a fact that she herself considered symbolic of her identity:
Reared on snow she was
Manacled on ice
and it was strangely fitting that she died also, on 29 December 1996, during one of the rare snowstorms in Victoria, B.C.
Her parents, J.F.B. Livesay and Florence Hamilton Randal, were both writers, having met while working for the Winnipeg Telegram. They fostered Dorothy’s literary interests from an early age, although it was not until much later that she discovered that her mother had written published poems. It was her mother who came upon a poem Dorothy had written at the age of 13 and took it upon herself to submit it to a newspaper for publication. Dorothy’s anger at having what she considered private material thus invaded was tempered by the check for two dollars that she received in payment.
By this time the family had moved to Toronto, where she went to a private school and subsequently to the University of Toronto, where she studied modern languages. At the age of 19 her first volume of poetry, a slim collection entitled Green Pitcher, was published. She decided to spend her third year as a student at the University of Aix-Marseilles, where she continued to write. Returning to Toronto for her fourth year, she found herself in a circle that was responding in a radical way to the effects of the deepening Great Depression. But it was during her year of graduate work at the Sorbonne in Paris (1931-32) that the economic effects of the Depression and the rise of Fascism affected Dorothy so strongly that she became a theoretical Marxist and then an active Communist.
Dorothy carried this political commitment back with her to Toronto, where she enrolled in the School of Social Work as a means of carrying her activism into practice. For the fieldwork that comprised the second year of her course, she was accepted by the Family Service Bureau in Montreal, where she was directly exposed to the poverty and misery of the unemployed in a city experiencing the worst effects of the Depression. Her concern for the plight of women, in particular, spurred the development of the strongly feminist emphasis that became a feature of her writing. But her literary output during this period was strongly ideological, which perceptibly affected its quality.
Dorothy’s first job after graduation was with a recreational agency in Englewood, New Jersey, where she was exposed to the full impact of what life was like in the black ghettoes. Her health gave way, and she returned to Toronto, where, after a period of recuperation, she found a congenial position in 1936 as a director of and contributor to a newly founded left-wing journal, New Frontier, which rapidly became more and more completely a mouthpiece for the Communist Party. Later that year she moved to Vancouver as the paper’s western editor, a position which she combined with social work and political activity.
She had not been in Vancouver long when she met Duncan MacNair, who had travelled widely after leaving his native Scotland, and in August 1937 the two were married. Their relationship was to a considerable extent complementary, though also tempestuous at times. After two children were born, Peter in 1940 and Marcia in 1942, Dorothy adjusted her priorities to her family responsibilities. Her literary output continued, though at a reduced level, and she became part of a small circle which successfully launched a new Canadian poetry magazine called Contemporary Verse. But by now she was becoming disenchanted with the Communist Party, though she had not lost her deep concern for the victims of the current economic order. Looking back on these developments from a later perspective, she wrote: “I learned a great deal about communist tactics of penetration and camouflage; but I was too committed to be shocked. It was only years later that the false actions and fractional tactics were revealed to me in their true light. This did not cause me to hate the Communists, or to Red-bait; rather, I was disgusted with myself for having been so duped. But I believe I let myself be duped because no one else except the Communists seemed to be concerned about the plight of our people, nor to be aware of the threat of Hitler and war. These things they saw clearly and they did extend brotherhood to the down-and-out. Certainly the communist predictions of capitalist depression followed by fascism and war were deadly accurate!”
It was during the mid-forties that Duncan and Dorothy discovered the Unitarian Church. For a long while Duncan had been a Theosophist, and at that time there were a number of people who were both Theosophists and Unitarians. Dorothy’s religious upbringing had been conventional. As she herself described it in a sermon delivered in the Unitarian Church of Vancouver in 1956:
I was brought up in an orthodox religious atmosphere. My mother’s Church of England views dominated my early years. I paid little attention to the fact that my father was a heretic and sceptic—himself an escapee from the Plymouth Brethren. However, after steadfast attendance at church and Sunday school, at 15 years old I startled my teacher by questioning certain articles of Anglican dogma… Later, at university I found a very free spirit of enquiry into the historical origins of Judaism and Christianity. Perhaps this made it all the easier for me to repudiate orthodox religion, and eventually to accept as a substitute the deterministic, Marxist view of the origin of man. The paradox continued however, for at the same time that I was embracing economic determinism and naturalism, I was also taking delight in a study of the seventeenth-century poets—all of whom were writing not in praise of man, but for the greater glory of God!
Her wrestling with such paradoxes did not end with her membership in the Unitarian Church. Looking back at a later date, she said, “I missed there the sense of the mysteriousness of life,” and in that same sermon she criticized the common tendency among Unitarians of that period to adopt a completely rationalistic and humanistic stance, saying, “Instead of ignoring the possibility of an outside power as the source of creativity in man, we should rather be making a study of these matters. The deterministic concept, I feel, does not go far enough. It ignores vast areas of human experience which cannot be ignored: I mean the areas of intuition, creativity and mysticism.” She went on to illustrate what she meant by extensive quotation from the poets: Vaughan, Donne, Blake, Whittier, Dickinson and Hopkins. The answer for them, as for her, was to be found in poetic insight. She noted in her journal, “I feel that the beauty of the natural world and the artist’s or poet’s revelation of it does lead to inner harmony—peace—truth. The Gothic cathedrals do lift us out of time.”
Dorothy and Duncan continued to live in Vancouver until 1958. She did some school and university teaching during this time, but her literary output remained fairly slight. Then, as her children grew older, she felt free to apply for a Canada Council fellowship to study the teaching of English at London University’s School of Education. This turned out to mark a new point of departure in her life. The following February she received the news that Duncan had died of a massive stroke, and returned briefly to Vancouver. But she was soon back in London, then for brief period in Paris, working for UNESCO. Later the same year she succeeded in obtaining a position on the staff of a teachers’ training college in what was then Northern Rhodesia but became the independent nation of Zambia while she was there. Her political and social concern involved the mistreatment of children and also the need for improved health and dietary standards. “I can do very little about all this, although I can put some of it into poems.”
In 1975 she once again was instrumental in founding a poetry magazine, CV/II, the title harking back to the Contemporary Verse of the 1940s. It became an important addition to the Canadian literary scene.
The honours which came Dorothy Livesay’s way in later life culminated in her being named an officer of the Order of Canada in 1987.
Her later years were spent mostly in rural retreats. At first she divided her time between a cottage on British Columbia’s Galiano Island and one on Lake Winnipeg; then she moved into a seniors’ complex on Galiano Island. Finally, when this degree of isolation became increasingly difficult to handle, she moved to Victoria, where in her last years she was a regular participant in the life of the Unitarian congregation.
The remarkable succession of changes through which her life moved illustrated her own dictum that, “Every decade we become a different person.” Yet there was an essential continuity and consistent line of development. All the way through she exemplifies a sometimes disconcerting degree of honesty and openness, an insistence upon personal integrity, and an encouragement to the rising generation to find their own authentic path in life. Cosmopolitan though her experience was, there could be no mistaking the genuinely Canadian character of her writing both in poetry and prose, which marked her sense of the importance of roots in a particular place.
— By Phillip Hewett, Minister Emeritus, Unitarian Church of Vancouver, BC, Canada
Livesay, Dorothy. The Self-Completing Tree (Selected Poems). Victoria, BC: Press Porcepic, 1986.
Livesay, Dorothy. Right Hand. Left Hand. Erin, ON: Press Porcepic, 1977.
Stevens, Peter. Dorothy Livesay: Patterns in a Poetic Life. Toronto: ECW Press, 1992.
Maktaba ya Harvard Square ipo tu kwa msingi wa michango. Ikiwa umenufaika na vifaa vyetu, na ikiwa kufanya vifaa vya urithi wa akili vya Unitarian Universalist kupatikana kwa wingi na bure ni thamani kwako, tafadhali toa chochote unachoweza - kila kidogo husaidia: Donate Dorothy Livesay, inakubaliwa kwa ujumla, alikuwa mmoja wa washairi wakuu wa Canada wa kizazi chake. Alizaliwa Winnipeg mnamo Oktoba 12, 1909, wakati wa dhoruba ya theluji ya kwanza ya msimu - ukweli ambao yeye mwenyewe aliona kuwa ishara ya utambulisho wake: Alilelewa kwenye theluji, alishikiliwa kwenye barafu, na ilikuwa ya kushangaza kwamba alikufa pia mnamo Desemba 29, 1996 wakati wa moja ya dhoruba za theluji za nadra huko Victoria, BC. Wazazi wake, J. F. B. Livesay na Florence Hamilton Randal, wote walikuwa waandishi, baada ya kukutana wakati wa kufanya kazi kwa Winnipeg Telegram. Walimsaidia Dorothy kupendezwa na fasihi tangu utotoni, ingawa haikuwa mpaka baadaye kwamba aligundua kwamba mama yake alikuwa ameandika mashairi yaliyochapishwa. Mama yake ndiye aliyepata shairi ambalo Dorothy aliandika akiwa na umri wa miaka 13 na akajipa jukumu la kulipeleka kwenye gazeti la habari ili lichapishwe. hasira ya Dorothy kwa kuwa na kile alichokiona kuwa nyenzo binafsi hivyo kuvamiwa ilikuwa tempered na kuangalia kwa dola mbili kwamba alipokea katika malipo. Wakati huo familia yake ilikuwa imehamia Toronto, ambapo alienda shule ya kibinafsi na baadaye katika Chuo Kikuu cha Toronto, ambapo alisoma lugha za kisasa. Alipokuwa na umri wa miaka 19, kitabu chake cha kwanza cha mashairi, Green Pitcher, kilichapishwa. Aliamua kutumia mwaka wake wa tatu kama mwanafunzi katika Chuo Kikuu cha Aix-Marseille, ambapo aliendelea kuandika. Aliporudi Toronto kwa mwaka wake wa nne, alijikuta katika mzunguko ambao ulikuwa ukijibu kwa njia ya kimkakati kwa athari za Mshuko Mkubwa wa Kiuchumi. Katika mwaka wa 1931 na 1932 alipokuwa akisoma katika chuo kikuu cha Sorbonne huko Paris, Dorothy alishirikiana na kikundi cha wanaharakati wa kisiasa na wa kisiasa. Dorothy alibeba ahadi hii ya kisiasa nyuma na yeye Toronto, ambapo yeye alijiandikisha katika Shule ya Kazi ya Jamii kama njia ya kubeba harakati yake katika mazoezi. Katika mwaka wa pili wa masomo yake, alikubaliwa na Ofisi ya Huduma za Familia huko Montreal, ambapo aliona moja kwa moja umaskini na huzuni ya watu wasio na kazi katika jiji lililokuwa likikabiliwa na athari mbaya zaidi za Mshuko wa Kiuchumi. Hasa wasiwasi wake juu ya hali mbaya ya wanawake ulisababisha maendeleo ya msisitizo mkali wa kike ambao ukawa sifa ya uandishi wake. Lakini uzalishaji wake wa fasihi wakati huu ulikuwa na itikadi kali, ambayo iliathiri ubora wake. Kazi ya kwanza ya Dorothy baada ya kuhitimu ilikuwa katika shirika la burudani huko Englewood, New Jersey, ambapo alifunuliwa kwa athari kamili ya maisha ya watu weusi katika gheto. Baada ya kupona kwa muda, alirudi Toronto, ambako alipata nafasi nzuri mwaka 1936 kama mkurugenzi na mchangiaji wa jarida la kushoto lililokuwa limesajiliwa, New Frontier, ambalo haraka likawa mdomo wa Chama cha Kikomunisti. Baadaye mwaka huo alihamia Vancouver kama mhariri wa magharibi wa karatasi hiyo, nafasi ambayo aliunganisha na kazi ya kijamii na shughuli za kisiasa. Baada ya kukaa Vancouver kwa muda mfupi, alikutana na Duncan MacNair, ambaye alikuwa amesafiri sana baada ya kuondoka Scotland, na mnamo Agosti 1937 walifunga ndoa. Uhusiano wao ulikuwa wa ziada kwa kiasi kikubwa, ingawa pia ulikuwa wenye msukosuko nyakati nyingine. Baada ya kuzaliwa watoto wawili, Peter mwaka wa 1940 na Marcia mwaka wa 1942, Dorothy alibadili mambo aliyotazamia na kuelekeza fikira zake kwenye familia. Uchapishaji wake wa fasihi uliendelea, ingawa kwa kiwango cha chini, na akawa sehemu ya mzunguko mdogo ambao ulifanikiwa kuzindua jarida jipya la ushairi la Canada lililoitwa Contemporary Verse. Lakini sasa alikuwa akivunjika moyo na Chama cha Kikomunisti, ingawa hakuwa amepoteza wasiwasi wake wa kina kwa ajili ya waathirika wa utaratibu wa sasa wa kiuchumi. "Akiangalia nyuma katika maendeleo haya kutoka kwa mtazamo wa baadaye, aliandika: ""Nilijifunza mengi juu ya mbinu za kikomunisti za kupenya na kujificha, lakini nilikuwa nimejitolea sana kushtushwa." Ni miaka michache tu baadaye kwamba vitendo vya uongo na mbinu za vikundi vilifunuliwa kwangu katika nuru yao ya kweli. Hii haikunifanya niwachukie Wakomunisti, au kuwa Red-bait; badala yake, nilijichukiza mwenyewe kwa kuwa nimedanganywa hivyo. Lakini nadhani nilijiruhusu nidhulumiwe kwa sababu hakuna mtu mwingine isipokuwa Wakomunisti aliyeonekana kuwa na wasiwasi juu ya hali mbaya ya watu wetu, wala kuwa na ufahamu wa tishio la Hitler na vita. Waliona mambo hayo waziwazi, nao wakawa na ushirika wa ndugu kwa wale walio chini. Kwa hakika utabiri wa Kikomunisti wa kushuka kwa uchumi na kufuatiwa na ufashisti na vita ulikuwa sahihi sana!  Ilikuwa katikati ya miaka ya arobaini kwamba Duncan na Dorothy waligundua Kanisa la Unitari. Kwa muda mrefu Duncan alikuwa Theosophist, na wakati huo kulikuwa na idadi ya watu ambao walikuwa wote Theosophists na Unitarians. Dorothy alilelewa kwa kufuata dini ya kawaida. "Mwanamke huyo aliandika hivi katika hotuba yake ya kwanza katika kanisa la Unitarian huko Vancouver: ""Nililelewa katika mazingira ya kidini ya kawaida." Maoni ya mama yangu kuhusu Kanisa la Uingereza yalitawala miaka yangu ya mapema. Sikuwa nikikazia fikira ukweli kwamba baba yangu alikuwa mwasi na mwenye kutilia shaka - yeye mwenyewe alikuwa mkimbizi kutoka kwa Ndugu wa Plymouth. Hata hivyo, baada ya kuhudhuria kanisa na shule ya Jumapili kwa uthabiti, nilipokuwa na umri wa miaka kumi na tano, nilimshangaza mwalimu wangu kwa kuhoji baadhi ya mambo ya mafundisho ya Anglikana... Baadaye, katika chuo kikuu, nilipata roho huru sana ya kutafiti asili ya kihistoria ya Dini ya Kiyahudi na Ukristo. Labda hii ilifanya iwe rahisi kwangu kuikataa dini ya orthodox, na hatimaye kukubali kama mbadala mtazamo deterministic, Marxist ya asili ya mtu. Hata hivyo, jambo hilo lilibaki kuwa kinyume cha kawaida, kwa sababu wakati uleule nilipokuwa nikikubali msimamo wa kiuchumi na wa asili, pia nilikuwa nikifurahia kujifunza kuhusu washairi wa karne ya kumi na saba - ambao wote walikuwa wakiandika si kwa ajili ya kumsifu mwanadamu, bali kwa ajili ya utukufu mkubwa zaidi wa Mungu! Mapambano yake na mambo hayo yenye kutatanisha hayakukoma alipokuwa mshiriki wa Kanisa la Unitari. "Akiangalia nyuma katika tarehe ya baadaye, alisema, ""Nilipoteza hisia ya usiri wa maisha,"" na katika mahubiri hayo yaleyale alikosoa mwelekeo wa kawaida kati ya Unitarians wa kipindi hicho kuchukua msimamo wa kimantiki kabisa na kibinadamu, akisema, ""Badala ya kupuuza uwezekano wa nguvu ya nje kama chanzo cha ubunifu katika mtu, tunapaswa badala ya kufanya utafiti wa mambo haya." Nadhani dhana ya kuamua haipiti mipaka. "Hiyo ni kwa sababu ya kuachana na mambo mengi ya kiakili, ya kiakili, ya ubunifu na ya kichawi, na kwa sababu ya kuachana na mambo ya kiakili, na kwa sababu ya kuachana na mambo ya kiakili, na kwa sababu ya kuachana na mambo ya kiakili, na kwa sababu ya kuachana na mambo ya kiakili.""" Jibu kwa ajili yao, kama ilivyo kwa ajili yake, lilipaswa kupatikana katika ufahamu wa kishairi. Alibainisha katika jarida lake, "Nahisi kwamba uzuri wa ulimwengu wa asili na ufunuo wa msanii au mshairi wa hilo husababisha upatano wa ndani, amani, ukweli. "Kathedra za Gothic zilikuwa na ""mwisho wa miaka"" na Dorothy na Duncan waliendelea kuishi huko Vancouver hadi 1958." Alifanya baadhi ya shule na chuo kikuu kufundisha wakati huu, lakini uzalishaji wake wa fasihi alibaki kiasi kidogo. Baada ya kuhitimu, alijiunga na Canada Council na kuhitimu katika Chuo Kikuu cha London. Jambo hilo lilimfanya aanze maisha mapya. Februari iliyofuata alipokea habari kwamba Duncan alikuwa amekufa kutokana na kiharusi kikubwa, na akarudi kwa muda mfupi Vancouver. Baada ya muda mfupi alirudi London na baadae akaishi Paris kwa muda mfupi, akifanya kazi kwa ajili ya UNESCO. Baadaye mwaka huohuo alifanikiwa kupata nafasi katika wafanyakazi wa chuo cha mafunzo ya walimu katika kile kilichokuwa Rhodesia ya Kaskazini wakati huo lakini ikawa taifa huru la Zambia wakati alikuwa huko. Hangaiko lake la kisiasa na la kijamii lilihusisha kutendewa vibaya kwa watoto na pia uhitaji wa kuboresha viwango vya afya na lishe. "Ninaweza kufanya kidogo sana juu ya haya yote, ingawa ninaweza kuweka baadhi yake katika mashairi. "" Katika 1975 alikuwa tena muhimu katika kuanzisha jarida la mashairi, CV II, jina harking nyuma ya Contemporary Verse ya miaka ya 1940." Ilikuwa nyongeza muhimu kwa eneo la fasihi la Kanada. Baada ya kupewa tuzo za heshima, Dorothy Livesay alipewa cheo cha Ofisa wa Amri ya Canada mwaka 1987. Miaka yake ya baadaye ilitumika hasa katika maeneo ya mashambani. Mwanzoni aligawanya wakati wake kati ya nyumba ndogo kwenye Kisiwa cha Galiano cha British Columbia na moja kwenye Ziwa Winnipeg; kisha alihamia katika jengo la wazee kwenye Kisiwa cha Galiano. Mwishowe, wakati kiwango hiki cha kujitenga kilipokuwa kikizidi kuwa kigumu kushughulikia, alihamia Victoria, ambapo katika miaka yake ya mwisho alikuwa mshiriki wa kawaida katika maisha ya kutaniko la Unitarian. Mfuatano wa mabadiliko ambayo maisha yake yalipitia ulionyesha kauli yake mwenyewe kwamba, "Kila muongo tunakuwa mtu tofauti". Hata hivyo kulikuwa na mwendelezo muhimu na mstari thabiti wa maendeleo. Katika kipindi chote hicho, yeye huonyesha kiwango cha uaminifu na uwazi, kusisitiza juu ya uadilifu wa kibinafsi, na kutia moyo kizazi kinachoinuka kupata njia yao ya kweli maishani. Ingawa uzoefu wake ulikuwa wa ulimwengu, hakukuwa na kosa la tabia ya kweli ya Canada ya uandishi wake katika mashairi na prose, ambayo ilionyesha hisia yake ya umuhimu wa mizizi katika mahali fulani. "Mwanzoni mwa mwaka wa 1950, Philip Hewitt, mhudumu wa kanisa la Unitarian Church of Vancouver, BC, alitoa ujumbe wa Biblia kwa Mashahidi wa Yehova.""" Mti Unaojikamilisha Wenyewe (Mashairi Yaliyochaguliwa). Victoria, BC: Press Porceptic, 1986. Maisha, Dorothy. Mkono wa kulia. Mkono wa kushoto. "Mfano: ""Porsche"" (Porsche) ni jina la kiingereza la mwaka 1977." Stevens, Peter. Dorothy Livesay: Mifumo katika Maisha ya Ushairi. Toronto, ECW Press, 1992.