Alden Nowlan
Encyclopedia
Alden Albert Nowlan was a critically acclaimed Canadian
poet
, novelist, and playwright
, 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. His father, Gordon Freeman Nowlan, worked sporadically as a manual labourer.
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. The family discouraged education as a waste of time, and Nowlan left school after only four grades. At the age of 14, he went to work in the village sawmill. At the age of 16, Nowlan discovered the regional library. Each weekend he would walk or hitchhike eighteen miles to the library to get books, and secretly began to educate himself. "I wrote (as I read) in secret." Nowlan remembered. "My father would as soon have seen me wear lipstick."
.
Nowlan eventually settled permanently in New Brunswick
. 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. He became the night editor for the Saint John Telegraph Journal and continued to write poetry. In 1967, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship
, and his collection Bread, Wine and Salt was awarded the Governor General's Award for Poetry
.
In 1966, Nowlan was diagnosed with throat cancer. 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. He remained in the position until his death on June 27, 1983.
for Bread, Wine and Salt (1967) and a Guggenheim Fellowship
. 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. He has a provincial poetry award named in his honour.
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.
In the 1970s, Nowlan met and became close friends with theatre director Walter Learning
. The two collaborated on a number of plays, including Frankenstein, The Dollar Woman, and The Incredible Murder of Cardinal Tosca.
The home of the Graduate Student Association at the University of New Brunswick is called the Alden Nowlan House.
Nowlan is buried in the Poets' Corner of the Forest Hill cemetery in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, novelist, and playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
History
Alden Nowlan was born into rural poverty in Stanley, Nova ScotiaStanley, Nova Scotia
Stanley is a community in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, Hants County, located in the Municipal District of East Hants. Stanley is most renoun for being the birth place of the acclaimed Canadian poet Alden Nowlan.- History :...
, adjacent to Mosherville
Mosherville, Nova Scotia
Mosherville is a community in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located in The Municipality of the District of West Hants. The community was first settled by New England Planter James Mosher and his wife Lydia Mosher Mosherville is a community in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia,...
, and close to the small town of Windsor
Windsor, Nova Scotia
Windsor is a town located in Hants County, Mainland Nova Scotia at the junction of the Avon and St. Croix Rivers. It is the largest community in western Hants County with a 2001 population of 3,779 and was at one time the shire town of the county. The region encompassing present day Windsor was...
, Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
, along a stretch of dirt road that he would later refer to as Desolation Creek. His father, Gordon Freeman Nowlan, worked sporadically as a manual labourer.
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. The family discouraged education as a waste of time, and Nowlan left school after only four grades. At the age of 14, he went to work in the village sawmill. At the age of 16, Nowlan discovered the regional library. Each weekend he would walk or hitchhike eighteen miles to the library to get books, and secretly began to educate himself. "I wrote (as I read) in secret." Nowlan remembered. "My father would as soon have seen me wear lipstick."
Career & Later Life
At 19, Nowlan's artfully embroidered résumé landed him a job with Observer, a newspaper in Hartland, New Brunswick. While working at the Observer, Nowlan began writing books of poetry, the first of which was published by Fredericton's Fiddlehead Poetry BooksGoose Lane Editions
Goose Lane Editions is a Canadian book publishing company founded in 1954 in Fredericton, New Brunswick as Fiddlehead Poetry Books by Fred Cogswell and a group of students and faculty from the University of New Brunswick. After Cogswell retired in 1981, his successor, Peter Thomas, changed the name...
.
Nowlan eventually settled permanently in New Brunswick
New Brunswick
New Brunswick is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the only province in the federation that is constitutionally bilingual . The provincial capital is Fredericton and Saint John is the most populous city. Greater Moncton is the largest Census Metropolitan Area...
. In 1963, he married Claudine Orser, a typesetter on his former paper, and moved to Saint John
Saint John, New Brunswick
City of Saint John , or commonly Saint John, is the largest city in the province of New Brunswick, and the first incorporated city in Canada. The city is situated along the north shore of the Bay of Fundy at the mouth of the Saint John River. In 2006 the city proper had a population of 74,043...
with her and her son, John, whom he adopted. He became the night editor for the Saint John Telegraph Journal and continued to write poetry. In 1967, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
, and his collection Bread, Wine and Salt was awarded the Governor General's Award for Poetry
Governor General's Award for English language poetry or drama
This is a list of recipients of the Governor General's Award for English-language poetry or drama. The award was created in 1937, the second year of the awards, and existed until 1980, when it was split into the separate awards for poetry and drama.-1930s:...
.
In 1966, Nowlan was diagnosed with throat cancer. His health forced him to give up his job, but at the same time the University of New Brunswick
University of New Brunswick
The University of New Brunswick is a Canadian university located in the province of New Brunswick. UNB is the oldest English language university in Canada and among the first public universities in North America. The university has two main campuses: the original campus founded in 1785 in...
in Fredericton offered him the position of Writer-in-Residence. He remained in the position until his death on June 27, 1983.
Awards and recognition
Nowlan's most notable literary achievements include the Governor General's AwardGovernor General's Award
The Governor General's Awards are a collection of awards presented by the Governor General of Canada, marking distinction in a number of academic, artistic and social fields. The first was conceived in 1937 by Lord Tweedsmuir, a prolific author of fiction and non-fiction who created the Governor...
for Bread, Wine and Salt (1967) and a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
. He took over the job Writer-in-Residence at the University of New Brunswick
University of New Brunswick
The University of New Brunswick is a Canadian university located in the province of New Brunswick. UNB is the oldest English language university in Canada and among the first public universities in North America. The university has two main campuses: the original campus founded in 1785 in...
in Fredericton from close friend Warren Kinthompson in 1968 and kept it until his death in 1983. He has a provincial poetry award named in his honour.
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.
In the 1970s, Nowlan met and became close friends with theatre director Walter Learning
Walter Learning
Walter John Learning is a Canadian theatre director, actor, and founder of Theatre New Brunswick.-Biography:Walter Learning was born in 1938 in the small village of Quidi Vidi in Newfoundland. Learning attended Bishop Feild College in St. John's and the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton,...
. The two collaborated on a number of plays, including Frankenstein, The Dollar Woman, and The Incredible Murder of Cardinal Tosca.
The home of the Graduate Student Association at the University of New Brunswick is called the Alden Nowlan House.
Nowlan is buried in the Poets' Corner of the Forest Hill cemetery in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
Poetry
- A Darkness in the Earth. Eureka, California: Hearse, 1958.
- The Rose and the Puritan. Fredericton, N.B.: University of New Brunswick, 1958.
- Wind in A Rocky Country. Toronto: Emblem, 1960.
- Under the Ice. Toronto: Ryerson, 1961.
- Five New Brunswick Poets. Fredericton, N.B.: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1962. (with Elizabeth BrewsterElizabeth BrewsterElizabeth Winifred Brewster, CM is a Canadian poet and academic.Born in Chipman, New Brunswick, she received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of New Brunswick, a Master of Arts degree from Radcliffe College, a Bachelor of Library Science from the University of Toronto, and a Ph.D....
, Fred CogswellFred CogswellFred Cogswell, CM was a Canadian poet.Born in East Centreville, New Brunswick he served overseas in the Canadian Army during the Second World War. A teacher at the age of sixteen, Cogswell gained a BA and MA at the University of New Brunswick and received a PhD from Edinburgh University...
, Robert Gibbs and Kay Smith) - The Things Which Are. Toronto: Contact, 1962.
- Bread, Wine and Salt. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, 1967.
- A Black Plastic Button and a Yellow Yoyo, handmade limited edition folio of 20 copies, printed and illustrated by Charles Pachter, Toronto 1968
- The Mysterious Naked Man. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, 1969.
- Playing the Jesus Game: Selected Poems. Trumansburg, N.Y.: New/Books, 1970.
- Between Tears and Laughter. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, 1971.
- I’m a Stranger Here Myself. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, 1974.
- Shaped by This Land. Fredericton: Brunswick, 1974.
- Smoked Glass. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, 1977.
- I Might Not Tell Everybody This. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, 1982.
- Early Poems. Fredericton, N.B.: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1983.
- An Exchange of Gifts: Poems New and Selected". Toronto: Irwin, 1985.
- What Happened When He Went to the Store for Bread. Minneapolis: Nineties Press, 1993.
- The Best of Alden Nowlan. Hantsport, N.S.: Lancelot, 1993.
- Alden Nowlan: Selected Poems. Toronto: House of Anansi, 1996.
- Between Tears and Laughter Tarset, Northumberland, U.K.: Bloodaxe, 2004. ISBN 1-85224-629-4
- The Execution, Sunburst, Scarborough, Ontario, 1982
- Helen's Scar
- The Bull Moose
- I, Icarus
Fiction
- Miracle at Indian River. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, 1968.
- Various Persons Named Kevin O’Brien. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, 1973.
- Will Ye Let the Mummers In. Toronto: Irwin, 1984.
- The Wanton Troopers. Fredericton: Goose Lane, 1988.
- The Glass Roses*
Drama
- Frankenstein: The Man Who Became God - Clarke, Irwin, Toronto 1973 (with Walter LearningWalter LearningWalter John Learning is a Canadian theatre director, actor, and founder of Theatre New Brunswick.-Biography:Walter Learning was born in 1938 in the small village of Quidi Vidi in Newfoundland. Learning attended Bishop Feild College in St. John's and the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton,...
) - The Dollar Woman - Playwrights Co-op, Toronto 1981 (with Walter LearningWalter LearningWalter John Learning is a Canadian theatre director, actor, and founder of Theatre New Brunswick.-Biography:Walter Learning was born in 1938 in the small village of Quidi Vidi in Newfoundland. Learning attended Bishop Feild College in St. John's and the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton,...
) - The Incredible Murder of Cardinal Tosca - Dramatic Publishing, 1978 (with Walter LearningWalter LearningWalter John Learning is a Canadian theatre director, actor, and founder of Theatre New Brunswick.-Biography:Walter Learning was born in 1938 in the small village of Quidi Vidi in Newfoundland. Learning attended Bishop Feild College in St. John's and the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton,...
) - A Gift to Last (with Walter LearningWalter LearningWalter John Learning is a Canadian theatre director, actor, and founder of Theatre New Brunswick.-Biography:Walter Learning was born in 1938 in the small village of Quidi Vidi in Newfoundland. Learning attended Bishop Feild College in St. John's and the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton,...
) from the teleplay by Gordon PinsentGordon PinsentGordon Edward Pinsent, CC, FRSC is a Canadian television, theatre and film actor.-Early life:Pinsent, the youngest of six children, was born in Grand Falls, Newfoundland, the son of Flossie ; originally from Clifton, Newfoundland, and Stephen Arthur Pinsent, a papermill worker and cobbler;... - Gardens of the Wind - (CBC radio broadcast) Saskatoon: Thistledown, 1982.
Non-fiction
- Campobello: The Outer Island. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, 1975.
- Double Exposure. Fredericton, N.B.: Brunswick Press, 1978.
- Nine Micmac Legends. Hantsport, N.S.: Lancelot, 1983.
- White Madness. Ottawa: Oberon, 1996.
- Road Dancers. Ottawa: Oberon, 1999.
Anthologies
- 15 Canadian Poets X3, ed. Gary Geddes (Oxford University Press, 2001)
- Coastlines: The Poetry of Atlantic Canada, ed. Anne Compton, Laurence Hutchman, Ross Leckie and Robin McGrath (Goose Lane Editions, 2002)
Further reading
- Raymond FraserRaymond FraserRaymond Fraser is a Canadian author.Born in Chatham, New Brunswick, Fraser attended St Thomas University where in his freshman year he played on the varsity hockey and football teams, and in his junior year was co-editor with John Brebner of the student literary magazine Tom-Tom...
. When The Earth Was Flat: Remembering Leonard Cohen, Alden Nowlan, the Flat Earth Society, the King James monarchy hoax, the Montreal Story Tellers and other curious matters. 2007. (ISBN 978-0-88753-439-3)
- Patrick Toner. If I Could Turn and Meet Myself: The Life of Alden Nowlan Goose Lane Editions, 2000. (ISBN 978-0-86492-265-6)
- Gregory M. Cook. One Heart, One Way: Alden Nowlan, A Writer's Life Pottersfield Press, 2003. (ISBN 1-895900-59-X)
- Alden Nowlan: Essays on His Works Guernica Editions, 2006.(ISBN 978-1-55071-234-6)
- Alden Nowlan and Class by Thomas R. Smith