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Shadow Maker: The Life of Gwendolyn MacEwan
There is no doubt Rosemary Sullivan is a biographer of extraordinary talent. Her first biography, By Elizabeth Life was a bestseller and nominated for a Governor General’s Award. Her third biography, The Red Margaret Atwood, Starting Out , was also a highly acclaimed national bestseller. And her second, Shadow Maker , won the Governor General’s Award for Non-fiction, the Canadian Authors Association Award for Non-Fiction, the City of Toronto Book Award and the University of British Columbia Medal for Canadian Biography. Now part of the PerennialCanada library, Shadow Maker reveals the many faces of Gwendolyn MacEwen, the magical and mesmerizing Canadian poet who died suddenly at the age of 46.
447 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
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About the author
Rosemary Sullivan
44 books201 followersRosemary Sullivan is a Canadian poet, biographer, and anthologist. She is also a professor emerita at University of Toronto.
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November 25, 2021I was attracted to this biography for two reasons. First, I had read that the author Rosemary Sullivan is a “character” in the book, writing about her research, her theories, her friendship with Gwendolyn and the realization that she didn’t know her well. This intrigued me because in my novel in progress, I too reveal my authorial voice.
The second reason I was drawn to this biography is because I’m taking a workshop on poetry, which I know nothing about but have always been drawn to. I wanted to get to know an iconic Canadian poet.
Gwendolyn was certainly that. She started writing excellent poems in the early sixties when she was still a teenager, won the Governor General’s award in her mid-20s and continued publishing, translating (Greek), collaborating (plays) and creating until her untimely death at age 45. She published a dozen books of poetry, two novels and two books of short stories.
Gwendolyn was also a fixture in the CanLit scene from the early 60s to late 80s, and knew simply everyone. The list of her friends reads like a Who Who’s of Canadian literature when it was emerging from colonial oppression and coming into its own: Leonard Cohen, Al Purdy, Irving Layton, Margaret Atwood, and on and on. Numerous interviews and reams of letters give Sullivan plenty of raw material for her biography.
Gwen grew up in a disintegrated family, watching, powerless as her mother sank deeper into madness (bipolar) and her father, a talented photographer, fell apart in despair and succumbed to alcoholism. Despite this pandemonium, at the age of 12, she changed her name from Wendy to Gwendolyn because, she told her older sister, she was destined to be someone important and Wendy was not the name of important person. Imagine being so SURE.
At 15, she was under her aunt’s care, and there is a suggestion that perhaps she was abused at the hands of her uncle. She attempted many times to write a poem series (The black tunnel) but nothing survives of it. Was she trying to write about this? What happened to her is the core mystery of the book, and like so many mysteries in our lives, it is never resolved. I am fine with this, because Sullivan explores it so carefully, never playing psychiatrist or voyeur (the twin demons that haunt so many biographers). She has a remarkable ability to be fully involved, emotionally and intellectually with her subject, yet maintains balance in her analysis.
Sullivan illuminates a life of poetry and mysticism, and Gwendolyn’s faith in imagination and the power of poetry. She is in thrall to myths of Egypt, of Greece. She learns both languages though she never graduated from high school. She is obsessed with Lawrence of Arabia, with ancient Pharaohs.
Her life is full of exuberance. Delightful surprises unfold: she loved archery and playing in the snow, frequently received late night phone calls from Glen Gould. But she also lived in extreme poverty, mostly renting basement apartments, moving frequently in the search for cheaper digs, and barely scraping together enough to eat.
And at the dark core of this remarkable woman was her tireless search for an all-encompassing love, a love to heal her, to hold her apart from the world. Obsessive love. She gets it once, but inevitably it dissipates; she loses her one true love. Other attempts are short-lived. She gradually succumbed to alcoholism and, in 1987 at the age of 45, died alone.
“Of all the various fears one can experience,
The earliest and possibly the
Most devastating is the imponderable
Agony of just being here.”
A marvelously compelling book about a remarkable woman and poet. I am compelled now to read her work… and perhaps learn more about her.
4/5 (only because I wanted to see more of Gwendolyn’s sense of humour)
A few of my favourite lines:
“The muse is a metaphor for the flash of connection, that conduit to the other world that Gwen was so preoccupied with.” P 107
“There was probably a part of [Gwen] as there is in all romantic sensibilities, that dreaded happiness. It would remove the exotic, it would reduce her to normalcy, and then where would the poems come from? But there was an equally urgent impulse to locate a kind of peace that might give her ground to stand on.” P 215
“Gwen felt we underestimate our own complexity. As moderns we are too literal minded and the spirit is dead. She needed to go back in time to the ancient myths, both beautiful and terrifying, that we have lost at our peril. Other poets like Robert Graves had led the way. There was a truth in the ancient myths we had missed.” P 222
Gwendolyn kept a journal of her first encounters with her lover Nikos – arguably the love of her life: “They were a perfect erotic match. She writes about that state of absolute erotic desire, when the body stops and focuses and the mind dissolves. That kind of desire makes sex a mystery, a state of enchantment or enthrallment, and the body seems life’s best gift, ringing on the strings of its own nerve ends, the mind no longer divided against itself looking back at its own face in the mirror. Desire – probably origin: de sideris, from the stars.” P 233
“Human beings are biological and emotional filter systems. We survive because of what we can filter out through our senses and our forgetting. Were we not able to filter out most of the world, it would drive us crazy. Gwen did not have a good filter system.” P 331.
“drichI: dismal (adj) the mind of a man of winter.” P 350
“Novels are not abstractions; they are distillations of one’s life.” P 337
“But Gwen had a poet’s vision; even her novels were poetic novels. And poetry was dying. Modern culture gave lip-service to poetry, but who really read it? A good book of poems would sell five hundred copies.” P 361.
The second reason I was drawn to this biography is because I’m taking a workshop on poetry, which I know nothing about but have always been drawn to. I wanted to get to know an iconic Canadian poet.
Gwendolyn was certainly that. She started writing excellent poems in the early sixties when she was still a teenager, won the Governor General’s award in her mid-20s and continued publishing, translating (Greek), collaborating (plays) and creating until her untimely death at age 45. She published a dozen books of poetry, two novels and two books of short stories.
Gwendolyn was also a fixture in the CanLit scene from the early 60s to late 80s, and knew simply everyone. The list of her friends reads like a Who Who’s of Canadian literature when it was emerging from colonial oppression and coming into its own: Leonard Cohen, Al Purdy, Irving Layton, Margaret Atwood, and on and on. Numerous interviews and reams of letters give Sullivan plenty of raw material for her biography.
Gwen grew up in a disintegrated family, watching, powerless as her mother sank deeper into madness (bipolar) and her father, a talented photographer, fell apart in despair and succumbed to alcoholism. Despite this pandemonium, at the age of 12, she changed her name from Wendy to Gwendolyn because, she told her older sister, she was destined to be someone important and Wendy was not the name of important person. Imagine being so SURE.
At 15, she was under her aunt’s care, and there is a suggestion that perhaps she was abused at the hands of her uncle. She attempted many times to write a poem series (The black tunnel) but nothing survives of it. Was she trying to write about this? What happened to her is the core mystery of the book, and like so many mysteries in our lives, it is never resolved. I am fine with this, because Sullivan explores it so carefully, never playing psychiatrist or voyeur (the twin demons that haunt so many biographers). She has a remarkable ability to be fully involved, emotionally and intellectually with her subject, yet maintains balance in her analysis.
Sullivan illuminates a life of poetry and mysticism, and Gwendolyn’s faith in imagination and the power of poetry. She is in thrall to myths of Egypt, of Greece. She learns both languages though she never graduated from high school. She is obsessed with Lawrence of Arabia, with ancient Pharaohs.
Her life is full of exuberance. Delightful surprises unfold: she loved archery and playing in the snow, frequently received late night phone calls from Glen Gould. But she also lived in extreme poverty, mostly renting basement apartments, moving frequently in the search for cheaper digs, and barely scraping together enough to eat.
And at the dark core of this remarkable woman was her tireless search for an all-encompassing love, a love to heal her, to hold her apart from the world. Obsessive love. She gets it once, but inevitably it dissipates; she loses her one true love. Other attempts are short-lived. She gradually succumbed to alcoholism and, in 1987 at the age of 45, died alone.
“Of all the various fears one can experience,
The earliest and possibly the
Most devastating is the imponderable
Agony of just being here.”
A marvelously compelling book about a remarkable woman and poet. I am compelled now to read her work… and perhaps learn more about her.
4/5 (only because I wanted to see more of Gwendolyn’s sense of humour)
A few of my favourite lines:
“The muse is a metaphor for the flash of connection, that conduit to the other world that Gwen was so preoccupied with.” P 107
“There was probably a part of [Gwen] as there is in all romantic sensibilities, that dreaded happiness. It would remove the exotic, it would reduce her to normalcy, and then where would the poems come from? But there was an equally urgent impulse to locate a kind of peace that might give her ground to stand on.” P 215
“Gwen felt we underestimate our own complexity. As moderns we are too literal minded and the spirit is dead. She needed to go back in time to the ancient myths, both beautiful and terrifying, that we have lost at our peril. Other poets like Robert Graves had led the way. There was a truth in the ancient myths we had missed.” P 222
Gwendolyn kept a journal of her first encounters with her lover Nikos – arguably the love of her life: “They were a perfect erotic match. She writes about that state of absolute erotic desire, when the body stops and focuses and the mind dissolves. That kind of desire makes sex a mystery, a state of enchantment or enthrallment, and the body seems life’s best gift, ringing on the strings of its own nerve ends, the mind no longer divided against itself looking back at its own face in the mirror. Desire – probably origin: de sideris, from the stars.” P 233
“Human beings are biological and emotional filter systems. We survive because of what we can filter out through our senses and our forgetting. Were we not able to filter out most of the world, it would drive us crazy. Gwen did not have a good filter system.” P 331.
“drichI: dismal (adj) the mind of a man of winter.” P 350
“Novels are not abstractions; they are distillations of one’s life.” P 337
“But Gwen had a poet’s vision; even her novels were poetic novels. And poetry was dying. Modern culture gave lip-service to poetry, but who really read it? A good book of poems would sell five hundred copies.” P 361.
January 5, 2009
For me, this biography was just as good as MacEwen's eponymous collection of poetry...and that's pretty damn good. I found it while doing a one woman show on MacEwen and it is just beautifully written. I've never encountered a biography about a poet that reads like poetry.
September 4, 2016
Not a Canadian poet I am familiar with, but this author did an excellent job of bringing her to life. She took few liberties in terms of speculation. Very research based. I enjoyed it more as I read.
October 27, 2025
We live our lives as narratives, examining them, interrogating ourselves, attempting to make our stories cohere. Like the novel of a good writer, we do not will our own plot. The plot evolves moment by moment out of accident, contingency, and intuitive leaps. Yet we believe there is something consistently us....that strings the narrative together. from the introduction pxiv
Rosemary Sullivan, in her thorough and no-nonsense manner, has found a way to honour and make some sense of the tribulations and transformations of the enigmatic and brilliant poet and scholar and Queen of Nonsense, Gwendolyn MacEwan.
her art....existed on the knife edge of reality and illusion, and depended on the spectacular suspension of logic. Because, of course, logic was a straight jacket that she did not believe in. p84
You can fly if you pretend your bed-jacket is a cape. p41
There was a moment in the 1960's that lasted a few years in Vancouver BC, where here and there if you knew to look were coffee-houses with open mikes for the poets and little magazines and hot discussions. Mona Fertig had her literary saloon. I was part of this heady counter-culture I think they were calling it then. Among my regrets that have lingered is my my lack of mindfulness at that time.
I recall Gwendolyn only vaguely; she wasn't in my small circle of friends. (But Milton was, just after they split I believe.) I can just about see us, both wrapped in our own alienation, wary and guarded against the world. It's sad to me that most of what I can recall of those days is hazy, like the flickering candlelight in the musty old rooms where we celebrated our newfound freedom from the mass mind.
Identifying with the broken, she could fail to identify the people who could match her in strength. p163. The tragic thing, that she did not completely realize her own strength. That she was baseline miserable and lonely, in spite of her friendships with other poets like Margaret Atwood and her marriages, which did not end happily ever after.
Life is a devotional practice in itself...that in itself is a perpetual prayer. p333
we speak from a fringe of meanings....p65
Rosemary Sullivan, in her thorough and no-nonsense manner, has found a way to honour and make some sense of the tribulations and transformations of the enigmatic and brilliant poet and scholar and Queen of Nonsense, Gwendolyn MacEwan.
her art....existed on the knife edge of reality and illusion, and depended on the spectacular suspension of logic. Because, of course, logic was a straight jacket that she did not believe in. p84
You can fly if you pretend your bed-jacket is a cape. p41
There was a moment in the 1960's that lasted a few years in Vancouver BC, where here and there if you knew to look were coffee-houses with open mikes for the poets and little magazines and hot discussions. Mona Fertig had her literary saloon. I was part of this heady counter-culture I think they were calling it then. Among my regrets that have lingered is my my lack of mindfulness at that time.
I recall Gwendolyn only vaguely; she wasn't in my small circle of friends. (But Milton was, just after they split I believe.) I can just about see us, both wrapped in our own alienation, wary and guarded against the world. It's sad to me that most of what I can recall of those days is hazy, like the flickering candlelight in the musty old rooms where we celebrated our newfound freedom from the mass mind.
Identifying with the broken, she could fail to identify the people who could match her in strength. p163. The tragic thing, that she did not completely realize her own strength. That she was baseline miserable and lonely, in spite of her friendships with other poets like Margaret Atwood and her marriages, which did not end happily ever after.
Life is a devotional practice in itself...that in itself is a perpetual prayer. p333
we speak from a fringe of meanings....p65
February 18, 2025
Gwendolyn MacEwen was a Canadian poet and author who never got the full recognition she deserved, even though she won the Governor General's Award for poetry in 1969 for The Shadow Maker.
This account of MacEwen's short life (she died at age 46) is a must-read for anyone who appreciates good writing and the history of Canadian literature.
How Sullivan describes MacEwen's frustration with and response to being denied a bank loan because, according to the bank manager, she had nothing to show for her life will always stay with me.
This account of MacEwen's short life (she died at age 46) is a must-read for anyone who appreciates good writing and the history of Canadian literature.
How Sullivan describes MacEwen's frustration with and response to being denied a bank loan because, according to the bank manager, she had nothing to show for her life will always stay with me.
May 18, 2020
RS isn't my favourite biographer.
March 11, 2024
Excellent biography.
September 1, 2012
I heard Rosemary Sullivan and Margaret Atwood interviewed on CBC one morning. They were speaking about Sullivan's The Red Shoes: Margaret Atwood Starting Out. I looked up Rosemary Sullivan online and that is how I learned about the Shadow Maker. So I picked it up and loved it.
I knew nothing about Gwendolyn MacEwan but loved the fact that the story was about a Toronto woman in the 1960s/1970s who was very gifted and who struggled. The book takes you into the world of addiction and poverty but also friendships and trust.
MacEwan was married briefly to Milton Acorn, the people's poet, whom I had heard about as championed by an adult literacy program in Toronto.
I was intrigued by the fact that MacEwan and Acorn lived for a time on Second Street on Ward's Island, back in the 1970s when the cottages there were decrepit and housed mainly poor artists and musicians.
A bust of MacEwan is housed in a small park on Walmer Road in the Bloor/Spadina area of Toronto.
I knew nothing about Gwendolyn MacEwan but loved the fact that the story was about a Toronto woman in the 1960s/1970s who was very gifted and who struggled. The book takes you into the world of addiction and poverty but also friendships and trust.
MacEwan was married briefly to Milton Acorn, the people's poet, whom I had heard about as championed by an adult literacy program in Toronto.
I was intrigued by the fact that MacEwan and Acorn lived for a time on Second Street on Ward's Island, back in the 1970s when the cottages there were decrepit and housed mainly poor artists and musicians.
A bust of MacEwan is housed in a small park on Walmer Road in the Bloor/Spadina area of Toronto.
December 23, 2013
This is an account of the life of Gwendolyn MacEwan, who wrote plays, books of poetry, and history. Her life was one of material poverty, while she struggled with the fear of going mad, alcoholism, and bad
relationships. She died at the age of 46, I think of grief as well as bad health. A compelling read.
relationships. She died at the age of 46, I think of grief as well as bad health. A compelling read.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews