Louise Morey Bowman

Louise Morey Bowman (17 January 1882 – 28 September 1944) was a Canadian poet.

Life

Lily Louise Dyer Morey was born in Sherbrooke, Quebec, 17 January 1882. She pursued her education with private tutors, then at Dana Hall School, and by extensive travel in Europe. Married in 1909 to Archibald Bowman, she lived in Toronto until 1919, when she moved to Montreal where she resided until her death in 1944.

Writing career

Bowman's first published poem, "North Room", appeared in Outlook in May 1913 and she had quite an extensive magazine publication. Her work appeared in Poetry, Outlook, Independent, Dalhousie Review, Queen's Quarterly, and Canadian Magazine. She also published three books: Moonlight and Common Day (Toronto: Macmillan, 1922); Dream Tapestries (Toronto: Macmillan, 1924), which won a David Award from the Quebec Government; and Characters in Cadence (Toronto: Macmillan, 1938). Her work drew some critical attention at its time of publication. Logan and French, in Highways of Canadian Literature, included her among the poets "Second Renaissance Period" of Canadian poetry, although their reasons for praising her were not inspired by an admiration for her Imagism. They claim "Louise Morey Bowman shows an airy fancy which is almost so ethereal as to be altogether abstract and unearthly." Ironically, this observation points toward one of the major weaknesses of her poetry. It often is, as Desmond Pacey described it, "deficient in substance and strength.

Barry Callaghan has claimed that W.E. Ross was "the first modern poet in Canada". He bases this claim upon the assumption that Ross introduced Imagism into Canadian poetry. But Ross was not the first Canadian to write in the Imagist manner (though he was probably the first to dedicate himself totally to it). Four years before his first published poem appeared in Dial in 1928, Bowman had published Dream Tapestries, a book which contained several poems that were clearly Imagist in technique. Her earlier book, Moonlight and Common Day had also reflected a definite imagist influence.