Journey with My Selves A Memoir, 1909-1963

Dorothy Livesay is one of Canada's foremost poets. Described by one critic as the finest lyricist of her generation, she has produced over the past sixty years a remarkable body of work that reflects her love of language, her commitment to social justice and her intense involvement in the changing world around her. In this absorbing memoir, Livesay tells her own truth about the people and experiences that have influenced her as a writer and as a woman.The life that unfolds in these pages is a rich one, filled with important relationships with family, friends, lovers and other writers. Livesay has never chosen to take the easy path, and she writes frankly about her struggles to free herself from the constraints imposed by family and society. She has always considered the poet's place to be out in the world, not in an ivory tower; as a young writer, she broke with literary convention to tackle subjects like racism, women's sexuality and the lives of working people, and much of her inspiration has come from her work as a teacher, social worker, journalist and activist.Lyrical, elegiac and often wryly amusing, Journey with My Selves is an engaging self-portrait of a woman who has insisted on her right to live by her own standards. [Book Jacket]