Avison was born in Galt , Ontario . She went to Victoria College and the University Of Toronto . Aside from her poetry, she also worked as a librarian, editor, social worker, and speaker.
Her first collection of poems was called ''The Winter Sun'', which won the Governor General's Award . Her later collection, ''No Time'', also won the Governor General's Award. In 2003 her work ''Concrete and Wild Carrot'' won the lucrative Griffin Poetry Prize .
Avison could be considered a spiritual or metaphysical poet. She converted to the Christian faith in the 1960s .
In 1984 she was made an Officer of the Order Of Canada .
- ''Concrete and Wild Carrot''. Brick Books, 2002. (winner of the 2003 Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize )
- ''No Time''. Hantsport, N.S.: Lancelot P, 1989; Brick Books, 1998.
- ''Not Yet but Still''. Hantsport, N.S.: Lancelot P, 1997; Brick Books, 1998.
- ''Selected Poems''. Toronto: Oxford UP, 1991.
- ''Winter Sun/ The Dumbfounding: poems'', 1940-66. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1982.
- ''sunblue''. Hantsport, N.S.: Lancelot Press, 1978.
- ''The Cosmic Chef Glee & Perloo Memorial Society under the direction of Captain Poetry presents an evening of concrete'' (poems by Margaret Avison others edited by B.P. Nichol.); courtesy Oberon Cement Works. Ottawa: Oberon Press, 1970.
- ''The Dumbfounding''. New York: Norton, 1966.
- ''Winter Sun''. London: Routledge, Kegan Paul, 1960.
- ''A kind of perseverance''. Hantsport, N.S.: Lancelot Press, 1994
- ''A Doctor's Memoirs'' (from papers and conversations with Dr. A.I. Wolinsky) Macmillan, 1960
- ''Acta Sanctorum'' (translation in collaboration with Ilona Duczynska & Peter Owen, 1966)
- ''History of Ontario'' Grade VII by Selwyn Dewdney . Toronto : W.J. Gage,1951.
- ''The research compendium; review and abstracts of graduate research'', 1942-1962. University of Toronto Press [c1964
- Kent, David, ed. ''Lighting Up The Terrain: The Poetry of Margaret Avison''. Toronto: ECW Press, 1987.
- ''Margaret Avison and Her Works''. Toronto: ECW Press, 1989.
- Mazoff, Chaim D.''Waiting for the Son: Images of Release and Restoration in Margaret Avison's Poetry''. Dunvegan, Ont.: Cormorant Books, 1989.
- Anderson, Mia. "Conversation with the Star Messenger: An Enquiry into Margaret Avison's Winter Sun." Studies in Canadian Literature/Etudes en Litterature Canadienne (SCL), 6.1 (1981): 82-132.
- Bowen, Deborah. "Phoenix from the Ashes: Lorna Crozier and Margaret Avison in Contemporary Mourning." Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews. 40 (1997): 46-57.
- Calverley, Margaret. "'Service Is Joy': Margaret Avison's Sonnet Sequence in Winter Sun."Essays on Canadian Writing. 50 (1993): 210-30.
- "The Avison Collection at the University of Manitoba: Poems 1929-89." Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews. 28 (1991): 54-84.
- Cohn-Sfetcu, Ofelia. "To Live in Abundance of Life: Time in Canadian Literature." Canadian Literature. 76 (1978): 25-36.
- Guptara, Prabhu S. "A Dark Reservoir of Gladness: Margaret Avison's Third Volume of Verse."The Literary Criterion. 16.1 (1981): 42-45.
- Jones, Lawrence M. "A Core of Brilliance: Margaret Avison's Achievement." Canadian Literature. 38 (1968): 50-57.
- Kent, David A. "Wholehearted Poetry; Halfhearted Criticism." Essays on Canadian Writing. 44 (1991): 67-78.
- Mazoff, David. "Through the Son: An Explication of Margaret Avison's 'Person.'" Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews. 22: (1988): 40-48.
- Moisan, Clement. "Rina Lasnier et Margaret Avison." Liberte. 108 (1976): 21-33.
- New, William H. "The Mind's (I's) (Ice): The Poetry of Margaret Avison." Twentieth Century Literature: A Scholarly and Critical Journal. 16 (1970): 185-202.
- Quinsey, K. M. "The Dissolving Jail-Break in Avison." Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews. 25 (1989): 21-37.
- Redekop, Ernest H. "Sun/Son Light/Light: Avison's Elemental Sunblue." Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews. 7 (1980): 21-37.
- Somerville, Christine. "The Shadow of Death: Margaret Avison's 'Just Left or The Night Margaret Laurence Died.'" New, W. H. (ed.). Inside the Poem: Essays and Poems in Honour of Donald Stephens. Toronto: Oxford UP, 1992: 55-59.
- Sullivan, R. "The Territory of Conscience: The Poetry of Margaret Avison." Literary Half-Yearly." 32.1 (1991): 43-55.
- Zezulka, J. M. "Refusing the Sweet Surrender: Margaret Avison's 'Dispersed Titles'" Canadian Poetry 1 (1977): 44-53.
- Zichy, Francis. "'Each in His Prison/Thinking of the Key': Images of Confinement and Liberation in Margaret Avison." Studies in Canadian Literature. 3 (1978): 232-43.
Source for list of publications: "100 Canadian Poets" and Margaret Avison's home page
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