Newlove, John, 1938-2003

John Newlove was born on June 13, 1938, in Regina, Saskatchewan.

He was a Canadian poet and editor. Never formally finishing college, he spent many years travelling around Canada doing various jobs. He taught high school English in 1957 in Manitoba and was a social worker in Saskatchewan in 1958, but spent most of his career as a copywriter, editor, and announcer on various radio stations. In 1960, he settled in Vancouver, British Columbia, for the remainder of the decade, engrossed in self-guided study and publication in chapbooks and literary and poetry magazines. From 1970 to 1974, he was a senior editor at McClelland & Stewart in Toronto. He won the 1972 Governor General’s Award for poetry for his collection of poems "Lies" (1972). He was the writer-in-residence at Loyola College, Montreal (1974-1975), the University of Western Ontario (1975-1976), Massey College, University of Toronto (1976-1977) and the Regina Public Library (1979-1980). Winner of Four Canada Council Grants between 1965 and 1981, including the Senior Arts Grant in 1977, Newlove was also awarded the 1984 Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild Founders Award and the Literary Press Group Award in 1986. In 1986, he published “The Night the Dog Smiled” and became the editor for the Commissioner of Official Languages in Ottawa for the Canadian government, a position he held until his death. His poems have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies in Canada, the United States, Mexico, Chile, England, France, Belgium, Germany, Romania, India, Australia, Italy, the former Yugoslavia, and Hungary. Newlove was the subject of two documentaries, “New Canadian Writers: John Newlove” (TVO, 1971) and “What to Make of It All? The Life and Poetry of John Newlove” (Bravo! 2007).

In 1966, he married a graphic artist and organizer, Susan Mary Phillips. He died on December 23, 2003, in Ottawa, Ontario.