The Self-Completing Tree

by Dorothy Livesay

The Self-Completing Tree is the author's own collection of the best of her last 50 years of writing. In this new edition, the celebrated Grand Dame of English Canadian letters and award-winning poet 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 a central metaphor for the most definitive collection of her poetry. The result is a spiritual autobiography charting the fascinating domains of her own life and the universal struggles we all share.

Genres: Poetry

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

A writer of journalism, short fiction, autobiography and literary criticism, Livesay is best known as a strong, sensitive poet dealing as capably with public and political issues as with personal and intimate emotion and reflection. She was senior woman writer in Canada during active and productive years in the 1970s and 1980s. Her mother, Florence Randal Livesay, journalist, poet and translator, and her father, J.F.B. Livesay, general manager of Canadian Press, encouraged her literary efforts from her first publication, Green Pitcher (1928). Educated at the University of Toronto and the Sorbonne, she worked in left politics during the 1930s, and subsequently won the Governor General’s Awards for Day and Night (1944) and Poems for People (1947). She trained as a teacher, taught in Northern Rhodesia [Zambia] 1959-63 and has served as university writer-in-residence. Her prolific publication continues undiminished, and her lifelong concern for women’s rights and the identity of the woman artist has ripened with time. A major collection of her poetry, Collected Poems: The Two Seasons, was published in 1972. Recent work includes A Public and Private Voice: Essays on the Life and Work of Dorothy Livesay (1986). She became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1987.

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Looking through some paperwork yesterday I ran into one of her poems I photocopied a long time ago, and remembered reading this. When I was in my twenties (almost 45) and a little younger and well, many times, I've went to the library. She's pretty good. One of the less popular Canadians that are well known, who wrote. Then again, who wants to be a social tool (I love reading.). Check some of her poetry out of you can. Harder to find increasingly, poetry, good stuff that doesn't rhyme (I don't need to remind you :-) and still very relevant.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel more alive, more human, more Woman, whenever I read any poem contained in this compilation. I hadn't thoroughly dissected and digested a book in this way since A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman.
"This is the selection of poems that I would like to be remembered by."
And so it shall be. Dorothy Livesay will live on in my heart and soul, in the heart and soul of every forest, in the heart and soul of every creature that dares to live, and love.

[Correy Baldwin · Rating 2 out of 5]

For such a celebrated poet, I found the writing surprisingly lacking in craft (other than her occasional use of more traditional rhyme and meter, with which she excels). The older collection of (fairly explicit) poems that capture the sexual freedom of a love affair, for which she largely seems to be known, were perhaps the most engaging, but even here, the sense of freedom about which she writes results in poems that lose their focus and feel incomplete. Her socialist writing was heavy handed. Her writing on aging, however, while not enough to fully impress me, was at least honest, forthright, and insightful.

*

To be complete
we must hold the whole sun
wholly
in the marrow of the bone

We must celebrate
how to be one
with everyone
yet forever alone

*

The prairie gave breath; I grew and died:
Alive on this air these lives abide.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Livesay's place in the Canadian Modernist cannon (a place she would dispute) is well earned. Her poetry is both simple and moving, and her dedication to leftist politics is impressive. I particularly like her use of children as mediators between that which is male and that which is female. Her transfiguration of the body is also unique: it often involves the melting or removal of skin, and -- while sounding gross -- is done with great beauty.

A great anthology.

[Joey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just life-affirming stuff.

[Angel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This woman can poetry!!

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was originally given to me as a University text to study, but I’ve returned to it under my own steam countless times since. It was first published in 1986, over twenty-five years ago, but its themes are timeless, and Livesay’s writing is seamless. There is a definite focus on female concerns, but the poems go much further. There are commentaries on places and people Livesay knew or observed, and on events that caught her eye. In her Foreword she describes her thinking as being dominated by poverty, racism, and war, but this is not a downbeat collection – perhaps because of what Livesay describes as her overarcing theme: ‘Whether a leap is possible, a miracle of changed feeling, changed thinking’. She also says she hopes that this is the collection she will be remembered by. I can see why, and this is one book I’ll never part with.

[Angie Abdou · Rating 4 out of 5]

See my review at www.abdou.ca/litpicks.html