![]() ![]() However, I hope I was able to stay true to the myth’s heart. Obviously, my poem takes creative liberties with the myth, specifically, the reason Icarus goes flying. However, so delighted at the feeling of flying, Icarus flies too high. Daedalus told Icarus to fly between the sun and the ocean, because the ocean’s spray will dissolve the wax and the sun’s heat will melt the wax. According to myth, the two were imprisoned on an island and Daedalus, a genius inventor, built crafted wings held together by wax to help them escape. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, 1977.Background information: Icarus is the son of Daedalus in Greek mythology. Playing the Jesus Game: Selected Poems (1970) Nowlan is buried in the Poets' Corner of the Forest Hill cemetery in Fredericton, New Brunswick.įive New Brunswick Poets(1962 with Elizabeth Brewster, Fred Cogswell, Robert Gibbs and Kay Smith)Ī Black Plastic Button and a Yellow Yoyo (1968) Im not the first or last to stand on a hillock, watching the man she married prove to the world hes a total, utter, absolute, Grade A pillock. The home of the Graduate Student Association at the University of New Brunswick is called the Alden Nowlan House. The two collaborated on a number of plays, including Frankenstein, The Dollar Woman, and The Incredible Murder of Cardinal Tosca. In the 1970s, Nowlan met and became close friends with theatre director Walter Learning. Nowlan is one of Canada's most popular 20th-century poets, and his appearance in the anthology Staying Alive (2002) has helped to spread his popularity beyond Canada. He has a provincial poetry award named in his honour. He took over the job Writer-in-Residence at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton from close friend Warren Kinthompson in 1968 and kept it until his death in 1983. Nowlan's most notable literary achievements include the Governor General's Award for Bread, Wine and Salt (1967) and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He remained in the position until his death on June 27, 1983. His health forced him to give up his job, but at the same time the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton offered him the position of Writer-in-Residence. In 1966, Nowlan was diagnosed with throat cancer. In 1967, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, and his collection Bread, Wine and Salt was awarded the Governor General's Award for Poetry. ![]() He became the night editor for the Saint John Telegraph Journal and continued to write poetry. ![]() Astride this rapture I'll smash every desperation. ![]() But the poison of chance fills my veins, the earth crushes me. You're right, I must be careful, at those heights I risk my soul. In 1963, he married Claudine Orser, a typesetter on his former paper, and moved to Saint John with her and her son, John, whom he adopted. I would like to fly away from here, be cured of this pointless disease, burn under another light, a clear, scorching dawn. Nowlan eventually settled permanently in New Brunswick. While working at the Observer, Nowlan began writing books of poetry, the first of which was published by Fredericton's Fiddlehead Poetry Books. "My father would as soon have seen me wear lipstick."Īt 19, Nowlan's artfully embroidered résumé landed him a job with Observer, a newspaper in Hartland, New Brunswick. "I wrote (as I read) in secret." Nowlan remembered. Each weekend he would walk or hitchhike eighteen miles to the library to get books, and secretly began to educate himself. At the age of 16, Nowlan discovered the regional library. At the age of 14, he went to work in the village sawmill. The family discouraged education as a waste of time, and Nowlan left school after only four grades. His mother, Grace Reese, was only 15 years of age when Nowlan was born, and she soon left the family, leaving Alden and her younger daughter Harriet, to the care of their paternal grandmother. His father, Gordon Freeman Nowlan, worked sporadically as a manual labourer. Alden Nowlan was born into rural poverty in Stanley, Nova Scotia, adjacent to Mosherville, and close to the small town of Windsor, Nova Scotia, along a stretch of dirt road that he would later refer to as Desolation Creek. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |