Dorothy Livesay is a pioneer in the ranks of Canadian poets. Her work was infused with extraordinary grace and power, and shaped by a prescient feminist sensibility which led her to be called a "voice of women." She is regarded as a major influence for many writers, not only for her poetry but for the remarkable manner in which she lived her life.

Dorothy Livesay was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1909 but

moved to Toronto with her parents at the age of ten. Her father, J.F.B. Livesay, was the first general manager of the Canadian Press, a war correspondent during the First World War, and author of Canada's Hundred Days (1919). Her mother, Florence Randal Livesay, was a poet of distinction and a pioneer in the field of translating verse from Ukrainian into English.

Dorothy studied at the University of Toronto and the Sorbonne, afterwards becoming a welfare worker, then a newspaper reporter, and finally a teacher. She taught Canadian Literature at the University of Victoria for two years. At the University of Alberta she taught Canadian Literature and Creative Writing. She also taught in the United States and Zambia (1959 - 1963), in the latter as a UNESCO field specialist.

Known chiefly as a poet, Dorothy Livesay won the Lorne Pierce Medal in 1947 for distinguished service to Canadian Literature. During the 1940's she was twice honoured with the Governor-General's Award for Poetry in 1944 for Day And Night, and again in 1947 for Poems for People. Livesay was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1987.

One example of Livesay's poetry a jewel of poem titled "Spain," found in the second section of  "Invitation to Silence: the 1930's."

The rowan berries bunched in red grape clusters
Beckon like wine to birds who winter with us;
See how the tree has clenched her ripening fruit
As though a thousand fists were offering
Their tangible testimony to withstand
All winter's bullying blasts.

A little country on the map of Europe
Stands so, as firm
And in the clenching of her fistsA harvest yield is spread
For those who'll not take flight, but stay
And winter with us. (54-55)

The Self-Completing Tree is the author's own collection of the best of her last 50 years of writing. Livesay uses the metaphor implied by the title--a tree, half verdant, half in flames--to symbolize the androgynous self. This is the theme of much of Livesay's work and the central metaphor for the definitive collection of her poetry. The result is a spiritual autobiography charting the fascinating domains of her own life and of the universal struggles we all share.

Some of her best-known poetry publications include Green Pitcher (1928), Call My People Home (1950), Ice Age (1975), Right Hand Left Hand (1977), The Woman I Am (1977), The Phases of Love (1983) and Journey With My Selves: a Memoir, 1909-1963 (1991).

Livesay was the founder and first editor of CVII and a founding member of the League of Canadian Poete, Amnesty International, and the Committee for an Independent Canada.

She passed away in 1996 in Victoria, B.C.