Milton Acorn

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Milton Acorn (born March 30, 1923 in Charlottetown , Prince Edward Island , † August 20, 1986 ibid) was a Canadian writer .

Life

Acorn, who was originally a carpenter, was receiving a disability pension due to being wounded in World War II .

Acorn began publishing his works in New Frontiers , while his first collection of poems, In Love and Anger, appeared in a private edition in Montreal in 1956 . Between February 1960 and June 1962 he was co-editor of seven issues of the small magazine Moment , first together with AW Purdy and then with Gwendolyn MacEwen , whom he married in 1962. In 1963 Contact Press published a small collection of his poems under the title Jawbreakers , while the literary magazine The Fiddlehead devoted its spring 1963 edition to Acorn's poetry . These works, along with the popular books The Brain's the Target (1960) and Against a League of Liars (1961) published by The Ryerson Press , contributed to widespread recognition.

In the mid-1960s he moved to Vancouver , where he became a passionate and argumentative member of the literary and journalistic underground . After his first large collection I've Tasted My Blood (1969) was ignored in the award of the Governor General's Award , other poets honored him with a specially created People's Poet Award , which showed his ability as a writer as well as his nationalist and activist attitude.

He later settled in Montreal and Toronto and then again in Vancouver, before moving to Charlottetown after another lengthy stay in Toronto. In 1971 he published I Shout Love and On Shaving off his Beard , a 2-poem sequence of private contemplations and political diatribes that did not become widely circulated. He dedicated his More Poems for People , published in 1972, to Dorothy Livesay .

In 1975 his poetry collection The Island Means Minago received the Governor General's Award and Acorn increasingly took on the role of the enfant terrible of Canadian poetry. In the following years Jackpine Sonnets (1977) and Captain Neal MacDougal & the Naked Goddess appeared. A Demi-Prophetic Work as a Sonnet-Series (1982). The most complete and extensive collection of Acorn's poetry was published in 1983 under the title Dig up my Heart: Selected Poems 1952-1983 .

Writing style and effect

As a writer and poet, he was a radical figure with strong left-wing political views and feelings for the working class . He transmitted these elements in his works with an aggressive and polemical quality and, in his words, “without apology or embarrassment for the use of Marxist or existentialist ideas”.

Though engaging in radical subjects, and often caught up in their feelings and language, he retained the unchanging core of Prince Edward Island, delivering the best of his poetic moments. Unobtrusive in his feelings, his power and directness came from the image of everyday island life. Committed to the class struggle, workers from Canada populated his poems, paying ceaseless tribute to their suffering, their humble handicrafts, and their uttered reliability.

Publications

  • In love and anger , 1956
  • Against a league of liars , 1960
  • The brain's the target , 1960
  • Jawbreakers , 1963
  • I'm a silence so grim ... , 1963
  • I've tasted my blood , 1969
  • I've tasted my blood; poems 1956 to 1968 , 1969
  • I shout love , 1971
  • More Poems for People , 1973
  • The Island means Minago , 1975
  • Jackpine sonnets , 1977
  • Captain Neal MacDougal & the naked goddess , 1982
  • Dig up my heart , 1983
  • Whiskey Jack , 1986
  • A stand of jackpine , 1987
  • I shout love, and other poems , 1987
  • The uncollected Acorn , 1987
  • Hundred proof earth , 1988
  • To hear the faint bells , 1996
  • Celebration! Selected Canadian Poets (# 5) , 2000
  • The Edge of Home , 2002
  • After the Eclipse , 2004

Background literature

  • Patricia Aitken: The poet as social conscience. The poetry of Milton Acorn , 1978
  • Ed Jewinski: Milton Acorn , 1990
  • Richard Lemm: Milton Acorn. In Love and Anger , 1999
  • Terry Barker: After Acorn. Meditations on the message of Canada's people's poet , 1999
  • Anne Compton: The edge of home. Milton Acorn from the island , 2002
  • James Doyle: For My Own Damn Satisfaction: the Communist Poetry of Milton Acorn

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ James Doyle (online version)
personal data
SURNAME Acorn, Milton
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian poet and writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 30, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Charlottetown , Prince Edward Island
DATE OF DEATH August 20, 1986
Place of death Charlottetown , Prince Edward Island