Các nhà văn nhà thơ nổi tiếng của Canada- Thơ tiếng Anh, những người yêu thích

Các nhà văn nhà thơ nổi tiếng của Canada- Thơ tiếng Anh, những người yêu thích

Đi kèm với chủ đề thơ thẩn...thẩn thơ của Snow storm ( với phần nhiều là thơ tiếng việt), tôi xin phép được là người đi đầu với chủ đề này nhằm mục đích giới thiệu các tác giả nổi tiếng của Canada đồng thời mong được có sự tham gia nhiệt tình của các ban. Các ban cũng có thể post những bài thơ tiếng anh mà các bạn thích hoặc là tự sáng tác để các thành viên của box cùng thưởng thức. Xin chân thành cảm ơn.
Chủ đề này xin phép không có tiêng việt nhá(hichic ngại type bằng tiêng việt mà)

Được MrDickcutter sửa chữa / chuyển vào 17:34 ngày 19/11/2003

Mitchell, William Ormond, novelist, dramatist (b at Weyburn, Sask 13 Mar 1914; d at Calgary 25 Feb 1998). In his treatment of prairie settings and language, W.O. Mitchell has depicted the West in fiction and influenced many later writers. He studied at U of Manitoba and U of Alberta. In 1944, after teaching 2 years, he settled in High River, Alta, where he remained until 1968 except for 3 years as fiction e***or at MACLEAN''S (1948-51). After 1968 he was writer-in-residence at the Banff Centre, U of Calgary, U of Alberta and Massey College, Toronto. He was at U Windsor 1978-87 and lived in Calgary until his death.
In 1947 Mitchell achieved instant recognition with the publication of his classic WHO HAS SEEN THE WIND. The novel examines the initiation of the boy Brian into the meaning of birth and death, life, freedom and justice. The children and the eccentrics, the ever-drunken Ben and the madman Saint Sammy, are the most vivid characters. Mitchell portrays the beauty and power of the prairie and the wind, symbolizing God. Allan KING directed the feature film based on the novel (1977) and an e***ion of the book illustrated by William Kurelek was republished in 1991. Mitchell''s second novel, The Kite (1962), is also concerned with life and mortality. Here Mitchell combines comic anecdotes with a more archetypal theme of the quest that ends in celebration and immortality.
The Vanishing Point (1973) was a reworking of an early unpublished novel. Set on the Paradise Valley Reserve, its theme is the resolution of alienation; it is an affirmation of racial and personal interconnectedness. His novel How I Spent My Summer Holidays (1981) returns to the theme of initiation, but the vision is much darker. Hugh leaves childhood innocence to pass into a world of betrayal, guilt, repression and violence. In the end, the old man Hugh is left only with knowledge. Since Daisy Creek (1984) is a contemporary Canadian Moby Dick. Mauled by a magnificent grizzly, Colin Dobbs, a failed novelist, suffers mental as well as physical scars, and seeks to heal himself through writing. The salty Dobbs and his feisty daughter Annie are Mitchell''s most vivid characters since Daddy Sherry. In 1988 he published a novel of suspense, Ladybug, Ladybug..., followed by another novel, Roses Are Difficult Here, in 1990.
Mitchell also wrote many plays for radio and TV. The popular Jake and the Kid (1961) originated in stories written for Maclean''s; the series ran weekly on CBC Radio 1950-56. Around the hired man and the adolescent Kid, Mitchell wove the adventures of the community of Crocus, Sask. The eccentric characters, tall tales and local dialect added to the audience''s enjoyment. The series was televised in 1961. The early radio plays The Devil''s Instrument (1949) and The Black Bonspiel of Wullie MacCrimmon (written 1951, published 1965) were later revised as full-length plays; the latter was staged in 1979 by Theatre Calgary as were The Kite (1981) and 2 plays written for the stage, Back to Beulah (which won the Chalmers Award, 1976) and For Those in Peril on the Sea (1982). These plays were published in Dramatic W.O. Mitchell (1982). He also wrote a musical, Wild Rose, in 1967.
In 1973 Mitchell became a Member of the Order of Canada. He was awarded several honorary degrees and was the director of the Writing Division, Banff Centre 1975-85. He received the Stephen Lea**** Award for his book According to Jake and the Kid (1989) and published a mystery, For Art''s Sake, in 1992, followed by an illustrated e***ion of The Black Bonspiel of Willie MacCrimmon in 1993. In 1992 he became an honorary Member of the Privy Council. After his death in 1998 the W.O. Mitchell Literary Prize was established for an individual who has produced a substantial body of work and who has acted as a mentor to new writers. In 1999 a biography, W.O. (Vol. 1), and a photographic tribute, W.O. Mitchell Country, both appeared.

Haliburton, Thomas Chandler, author, judge, politician (b at Windsor, NS 17 Dec 1796; d at Isleworth, Eng 27 Aug 1865). Haliburton was a born Tory, whose father and grandfather had been lawyers and judges. An Anglican, he was educated at King''s Collegiate School and King''s College, Windsor, NS. Following graduation in 1815 he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1820. Gregarious and ambitious, he soon founded a law practice in Annapolis Royal and established a sufficient local reputation to become an MLA in 1826. Three years later he was elevated to the bench. In 1854 he was appointed to the NS Supreme Court but retired 2 years later because of ill health. While a judge, and in ad***ion to his family and social life and his writing, Haliburton was an active businessman. He relinquished direct participation in his business endeavours when he moved to England following his retirement from the bench. There Haliburton settled at Isleworth and in 1859 became the Tory MP for Launceston. He retired from politics in England in 1865.
Haliburton''s reputation lies in the many substantial works in provincial history, political pamphlets and fiction that he wrote from 1823 to 1860. His first book was published in 1823 when he was 27. A General Description of Nova Scotia (1823) was followed by a more ambitious, 2-volume work, An Historical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia (1829). His other historical writings include The English in America (1851) and Rule and Misrule of the English in America (1851). Two political works also demonstrate Haliburton''s lifelong interest in Canadian affairs: The Bubbles of Canada (1839) and a shorter pamphlet, A Reply to the Report of the Earl of Durham (1839).
It was The Clockmaker; or the Sayings and Doings of Sam Slick of Slickville that made Haliburton the first Canadian writer to gain an international reputation. Twenty-two instalments of The Clockmaker appeared in the newspaper Novascotian before it was first published in book form by Joseph HOWE in 1836. There soon followed The Clockmaker, 2nd series (1838), and in 1840 the 3rd series. It is estimated that as many as 80 e***ions of The Clockmaker appeared during the 19th century.
Perhaps Haliburton''s finest and most enduring work is The Old Judge; or Life in a Colony (1849). This work reveals Haliburton in a more sombre and reflective mood as he states with genuine feeling his farewell to Nova Scotia. The Old Judge lacks the wisecracking observations that made the adventures of Sam Slick so readable, but it is balanced and marked by a maturity not always present in Haliburton''s other writings.
Like his fellow Nova Scotians, Thomas MCCULLOCH and John YOUNG ("Agricola"), Haliburton provoked Nova Scotians to better themselves in agriculture and business to combat the depression of the 1820s. Despite his initial debt to McCulloch, he extended his writings to fight the political situation both at home and in England. The Clockmaker has been described as "a series of moral essays pointed by satire." There can be no doubt about Haliburton''s extraordinary ability as a writer of social satire, which was heightened by his ear for local idiom, dialect and anecdote. No full bibliographical study of Haliburton''s career has yet been made, nor is there a book-length biography.

Moodie, Susanna, nee Strickland, author, settler (b at Bungay, Eng 6 Dec 1803; d at Toronto 8 Apr 1885). Susanna was the youngest in a literary family of whom Catharine Parr TRAILL and Samuel Strickland are best known in Canada. Her struggles as a settler, progressive ideas, attachment to the "best" of contemporary British values, suspicion of "yankee" influence in Canada, and her increasingly highly regarded book, ROUGHING IT IN THE BUSH, have made her a legendary figure in Canada.
From comfortable beginnings Susanna and her sisters became precociously engaged in writing, partly for economic reasons, after their father''s death in 1818. They produced work for children, for gift books and for ladies'' periodicals. Susanna wrote sketches of Suffolk life for La Belle Assemblée 1827-28, prefiguring the style and method of her later, best-known book. She moved to London in 1831, where she continued an association begun earlier with the Anti-Slavery Society, meeting her future husband, John Wedderburn Dunbar Moodie, at the home of the society''s secretary. For the society she wrote 2 antislavery tracts, The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave (1831) and Negro Slavery Described by a Negro (1831), establishing her humanitarianism and sensitivity to the range of character and moral outlook among "respectable" people. Enthusiasm: and Other Poems (1831) also reveals a writer engaged in serious ideas.
After her marriage in 1831, she and her husband emigrated with their first child (of 6) in July 1832 largely for financial reasons-Dunbar Moodie being a half-pay officer and Mrs Moodie being without wealth. Arriving in the Cobourg area of Upper Canada, they attempted to farm in 2 different locations over the next 7 years. Unsuccessful, they removed to Belleville in 1840 after Dunbar Moodie was appointed sheriff of Victoria District. Emigration and the pioneering years, however, provided Mrs Moodie with material for the Literary Garland (Montréal)-material later incorporated in Roughing It and drawn upon for her novel Flora Lyndsay.
In Belleville, Mrs Moodie wrote and published a good deal, much of her output romantic fiction set outside Canada. During 1847-48 she and her husband e***ed and wrote for the Victoria Magazine, intending *****pply good literature for the mechanic class-skilled and semiskilled workers. She published Roughing It in the Bush in 1852, Life in the Clearings in 1853 and Flora Lyndsay in 1854-all 3 concerned with Canada. It is often (incorrectly) remarked that she wrote documentary realism for the British market and romantic adventure for the Canadian market. In fact, she published both in both countries and in the US, but England provided her with more opportunity to publish than Canada did.
Roughing It in the Bush is her best-known and best work. It combines her steadfast moral vision, her fascination with differences in character, a willingness to reveal personal weakness and inexperience, considerable psychological insight and a generous measure of wit and playfulness. Together with its sequel, Life in the Clearings, it has formed the basis of her reputation.
Mrs Moodie lived in or near Belleville until the death of her husband in 1869, from which time she lived chiefly in Toronto until her own death.

Lea****, Stephen, humorist, essayist, teacher, political economist, historian (b at Swanmore, Eng 30 Dec 1869; d at Toronto 28 Mar 1944). The recipient of numerous honorary degrees, awards and distinctions (the Lorne Pierce Medal, the Governor General''s Award, a postage stamp issued in his honour, the Lea**** Medal for Humour established in his honour), Lea**** was the English-speaking world''s best-known humorist 1915-25.
He grew up on a farm near Lake Simcoe, Ont, and was educated at Upper Canada College (where he taught for 9 years), the University of Toronto and the University of Chicago, where he studied economics and political science (PhD 1903). He joined McGill''s department of economics and political science in 1903, rose quickly to become department head, and remained there until his retirement in 1936. A prolific magazine supplier of humorous fiction, literary essays and articles on social issues, politics, economics, science and history, Lea**** claimed near the end of his life: "I can write up anything now at a hundred yards." Most of his books are collections of these magazine pieces.
His first book, Elements of Political Science (1906), a workmanlike treatment of its subject, was his best-selling book in his lifetime. Although he was not an original or particularly incisive political economist, Lea****''s professional opinions on matters such as the need for a gold standard have proved prophetic in their commonsense approach to what he considered a jungle of statistics. His writings on the theoretical and technical aspects of humour are similarly refreshing for their accessibility, as are his views on education.
He was politically active in the Conservative Party in both his home riding of Orillia and nationally. In the 1911 general election, his propagandist writings and public addresses on the issue of RECIPROCITY helped defeat Sir Wilfrid LAURIER''s Liberal government. Although Lea**** was a man of many seeming contradictions, generally his stance was tra***ionally conservative. A Tory in the precapitalist sense, he valued the community over the individual, organic growth over radical change, the middle way over extreme deviation. Such values form the basis of Lea****''s satiric norm, the authorial position from which he attacked rampant individualism, materialism and worship of technology. Although frequently unfaithful to his credo that humour be kindly-he was at times racist, anti-feminist and downright ornery-the unique alchemy of compassion and caustic wit remain the elements which accord his humour a timelessness few Canadian writers have achieved.
His 2 masterpieces are SUNSHINE SKETCHES OF A LITTLE TOWN (1912) and ARCADIAN ADVENTURES WITH THE IDLE RICH (1914). The first humorously anatomizes business, social life, religion, romance and politics in the typical small Canadian town of Mariposa, whose name has attained mythic significance in the Canadian psyche. Perhaps the greatest creation of Sunshine Sketches is the narrator himself, who, in his affection for and bemusement at the community of Mariposa that he so admirably represents, reveals the essential Lea****. Arcadian Adventures dissects life in an American city with sharper satire, less qualified by the author''s affection and pathos. Taken together, these 2 books reveal the imaginative range of Lea****''s vision-the nostalgic concern for what is being lost with the passing of human communities and his fear for what may issue. However, Lea**** believed that the best humour resides at the highest reaches of literature.
Any list of his own best works, both fiction and nonfiction, would have to include the following selection from some 60-odd books: Nonsense Novels (1911), Moonbeams from the Larger Lunacy (1915), Further Foolishness (1916), Essays and Literary Studies (1916), Frenzied Fiction (1918), The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice (1920), My Discovery of England (1922), The Garden of Folly (1924), Winnowed Wisdom (1926), Short Circuits (1928), Lincoln Frees the Slaves (1934), Humor: Its Theory and Technique (1935), Humour and Humanity (1937), My Discovery of the West (1937), Too Much College (1939), My Remarkable Uncle (1942), Our Heritage of Liberty (1942), Happy Stories (1943), How to Write (1943), Last Leaves (1945) and his unfinished autobiography, The Boy I Left Behind Me (1946).
Được MrDickcutter sửa chữa / chuyển vào 23:45 ngày 21/11/2003

B.C. writer wins National Book Award

By REBECCA CALDWELL
From Thursday''s Globe and Mail

British Columbia writer Polly Horvath has won one of the most prestigious prizes in American literature, a $10,000 (U.S.) National Book Award, for her children''s book The Canning Season.
That The Canning Season, a young-adult novel about a city girl from Pensacola, Fla., who must spend a summer with her 91-year-old twin aunts in rural Maine, won the prize was particularly meaningful because of the initial doubts about how the book might be received, Horvath said.
"It was a book that nobody knew how it was going to do," Horvath said yesterday during a phone interview. "There was a lot of talk, was it an adult''s book, was it a kid''s books? For me, it was really a vindication to get the award, because that really said, we don''t care who it''s for, it''s a good book. So that was nice to hear."
Established in 1950 with the goal "to enhance the public''s awareness of exceptional books written by fellow Americans, and to increase the popularity of reading in general," the awards are given annually by the National Book Foundation to the best books published in the United States by an American citizen, and have been won by every major writer including William Faulkner, Norman Mailer and Joyce Carol Oates. Horvath, 46, was born in Kalamazoo, Mich., but has lived in Canada for the past 26 years and has landed immigrant status. She lives in Metchosin, B.C., with her husband and two daughters.
Her past books have won numerous praises: In 1999, her book The Trolls was nominated for a National Book Award; her last book, 2001''s Everything on a Waffle, was a Newbery Honour Book.
Horvath was just one of four National Book Award winners honoured Wednesday night at a glitzy black-tie ceremony at Manhattan''s Marriott Marquis Hotel with 900 people of the American publishing industry and 150 members of the media in attendance. Winners in the other categories include Shirley Hazzard for The Great Fire (fiction); Carlos Eire for Waiting for Snow in Havana (non-fiction); and C.K. Williams for Singing (poetry). Each winner receives $10,000 and a special bronze sculpture; each finalist receives $1,000.
The ceremony also included a special presentation of the 2003 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters to popular thriller writer Stephen King, who has written more than 40 books including Carrie, The Shining, Misery and The Green Mile. It was a controversial moment: Although King received a standing ovation when he went to collect his award, apparently not everyone present felt he deserved the prize which had previously gone to writers such as Arthur Miller, Toni Morrison and Saul Bellow.
The 72-year-old Hazzard, for one, expressed her doubt. "I don''t think giving us a reading list of those who are most read at this moment is much of a satisfaction," she told Associated Press, admitting she had never read one of his books.
In his speech, King addressed the literary community''s reluctance to accept commercially successful writers as equals. He decried people who "make a point of pride in saying they have never read anything by John Grisham, Tom Clancy, Mary Higgins Clark or any other popular writer."
"What do you think," he asked the crowd, "you get social academic brownie points for deliberately staying out of touch with your own culture?"

Stephansson, Stephàn Gudmundsson, Stefàn Gudmundur Gudmundsson, poet, pioneer farmer (b at Kirkjuholl, Skagafjördur, Iceland 3 Oct 1853; d at Markerville, Alta 10 Aug 1927). Known as "the poet of the Rocky Mountains," Stephansson became the foremost west-Icelandic poet in Canada and one of Iceland''s major poets. Although he wrote in Icelandic, his poetry reflects his love for Alberta, his concern with contemporary political issues and awareness of 20th-century thought as well as his Icelandic heritage. He lived at Kirkjuholl until 1862, at Vídimyrarsel until 1870 and at Myri in Bàrdardalur until he was 20. In 1873 he immigrated with his parents to Wisconsin and worked as a day labourer. Later he claimed land in Shawano County and worked as a farmer and logger. He moved to North Dakota in 1880 and to Canada in 1889, homesteading and farming near Markerville, Alta, until his death. Largely self-educated, Stephansson took an active part in the social and cultural life of Icelandic Canadians, as well as writing prolifically and carrying on a large correspondence. He was a romantic realist and satirist, known for his pacifism and interest in women''s rights. His poems were published in west-Icelandic magazines after 1890. His published books are Uti a Vídavangi (poems, 1894); A Ferd og Flugi (poems, 1900); his collected poems Andvökur I-VI (1909-38); Kolbeinslag (poetry, 1914); Heimleidis (poems from his 1917 visit to Iceland); Vígslodi (antiwar poem, 1920) and his collected letters and essays, Bréf og Ritgerdir I-IV (1938-48). His own essays are an excellent source of information on his life and writing.

A Dream within a Dream
by Edgar Allen Poe
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet, if Hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it, therefore, the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
Được MrDickcutter sửa chữa / chuyển vào 18:39 ngày 25/11/2003

Santa is a Line Dancer
I went to the club late on Christmas Eve,
There was a party like you wouldn''t believe;
The beer was flowin'', the place was loud,
A man could get lost just workin'' the crowd;
I was on my second round and what did I see?
An old man with a beard was smiling at me;
He wore a red coat and he drove a sleigh;
Man, could that stranger slip and sway!
Santa is a line dancer, burnin'' up the floor,
He''s ringin'' those bells, and he''s ready to roar;
Santa is a line dancer, and he''s got the beat,
Better make way for those magic feet.
I thought I was crazy, couldn''t believe my eyes,
It''s the Miller talkin'', then I realized
Santa himself was out on the town,
Kickin'' up his heels before he made his rounds;
He was a hit with the women under the mistletoe,
They sat on his lap, now wouldn''t you know;
He took down their number, wouldn''t you bet;
This was a Christmas they''d never forget.
I watched him take off in his turbo sleigh,
It had bucket seats and a microwave;
His side-kick was an elf in a mini skirt,
She wore a pointed hat and a sequined shirt;
I heard him shout as he hit the sky,
"Merry Christmas, y''all,I''ve got to fly!
Next Christmas Eve, I''ll be ready for more,
Babe, I''ll meet you out on the floor!"
(Copyright; Joel Bjorling )
Dũng sỹ diệt gái ký tên!

Tớ xin giới thiệu một bài thơ của Margaret Atwood, một nha` thơ nhà văn nổi tiếng của Canada.
You are happy
The warter turns
a long way down over the raw stone,
ice crusts around it
We walk separately
along the hill to the open
beach, unused
picnic table, wind
shoving the brown waves, erosion, gravel
rasping on gravel.
In the ***ch a deer
carcass, no head. Bird
running across the glaring
road against the low pink sun.
When you are this
cold you can think about
nothing but the cold, the images
hitting into your eyes
like needles, crystals, you are happy.
Dũng sỹ diệt gái ký tên!