Elsa Gidlow
(December 29, 1898 - June 8, 1986) Canada
Poet
Born in Hull, Yorkshire, England. When Elsa was six years of age the family emigrated to Tetreauville, Québec, Canada. As a child she didn't have formal education, she helped her mother in the houshold while secretly nurturing her ambitions to be a poet. When she was sixteen, she moved with her parents to Montréal.
There she took a typing job, attended courses at McGill College (now University), and had her first passionate relationship with a woman. After changing several works, she also co-founded and owned a publishing house.
Gidlow lived openly as a lesbian. Her long-term partners were Violet Henry-Andreson and Isabel Quallo.
Her work include:
- On a Grey Thread (1923)
- California Valley with Girls (1932)
- Wild Swan Singing (1954)
- Moods of Eros (1970)
- Mailings for Meditation (1973)
- Sapphic Songs: Seventeen to Seventy (1976)
- Sapphic Songs: Eighteen to Eighty (1982)
- Casting a Net: Excerpts From an Autobiography (1986)
- Elsa, I Come With My Songs: The autobiography of Elsa Gidlow (1986)
|
