The Self-Completing Tree is the author’s own collection of the best of her last 50 years of writing. In this new edition, the celebrated Grand Dame of English Canadian letters and award-winning poet uses the metaphor implied by the title — a tree, half verdant, half in flames — to symbolize the androgynous self. This is the theme of much of Livesay’s work and a central metaphor for the most definitive collection of her poetry. The result is a spiritual autobiography charting the fascinating domains of her own life and the universal struggles we all share.

Dorothy Livesay’s first book was published in 1928, Green Pitcher (Macmillan), followed by: Signpost (Macmillan, 1932), Day and Night (Ryerson, 1944), Poems for People (Ryerson, 1947), Call My People Home (Ryerson, 1950), New Poems (Emblem, 1955) Selected Poems (Ryerson, 1957), The Unquiet Bed (Ryerson, 1967), The Documentaries (Ryerson, 1968), Plainsongs (Fiddlehead, 1969), Disasters of the Sun (Blackfish, 1971), Collected Poems: The Two Seasons (McGraw-Hill, 1972), Nine Poems of Farewell (Black Moss, 1973), Winnipeg Childhood (Pequis Press, 1973), The Raw Edges (Turnstone, 1981), The Phases of Love (Coach House, 1983) and Feeling the Worlds (Goose Lane/Fiddlehead, 1984). With Beach Holme she has published Ice Age (1975), The Woman I Am (1977), Right Hand, Left Hand (1977) and The Self-Completing Tree (Beach Holme, 1999). She is also the winner of two Governor General’s Awards (1944 and 1947) and the Queen’s Medal. She is an Officer of the Order of Canada (1987), and is considered by many to be the Grand Dame of Canadian poetry. She has had a long career in Canada, the U.S. and Zambia working as an editor, broadcast journalist and university professor with degrees from UBC and U of T in Modern Languages, Education and Social Work as well as a diploma from Sorbonne in Paris. She was the founder, and for many years editor, of the literary quarterly CVII. She is also a founding member of Amnesty International (Canada), the Committee for an Independent Canada, and the League of Canadian Poets. The B.C. book prize for poetry is named in her honour. Dorothy Livesay passed away in 1996 but her contribution to Canadian literature will live on forever.

Dorothy Livesay's profile page