The Sunday Before Winter: The New and Selected Poetry of Marilyn Bowering

by Marilyn Bowering

Short-listed for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry

“A clear voice—lyric soprano—and singing such songs: difficult, frightening, fragile. But all glistening like wet stones, the wings of insects, scissors.”
PK Page

“In Marilyn Bowering’s poetry the world that we touch and the world that we dream are brought together in a mirror that reflects completeness and an understanding only possible in the finest art, and Marilyn Bowering’s poetry is some of the finest art we possess.”

Robin Skelton

“Mastery of form, rhyme, metre, and sound would be enough to compel attention to Bowering’s compositions…Yet more compelling is her invention of a mythology—whose main topics are loss, grief, dream, and delight—both attached to classical literary and mythological sources and independent from the. It is one thing to transform personal experience into myth portentous but impenetrable; it is quite another thing to recognize the universal in personal experience and to discover for it appropriately clear, starling, sometimes unnerving mythical objects….Though her poems are as concentrated as lyrics in their music, imagery, and passion, Bowering’s greatest poetical gift is her ability to infuse in such lyrical concentrations the thoughtful breadth of meditation.”

Canadian Literature, Mark Madoff

127 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

MARILYN BOWERING’s first novel, To All Appearances A Lady, was a New York Times Notable Book. Her second novel, Visible Worlds, was short-listed for the prestigious Orange Prize, nominated for the Dublin IMPAC Prize, and awarded the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. Visible Worlds was praised by The Independent as “a tour de force … a wonderful piece of storytelling” and by The New York Times Book Review as “a vast, sprawling feast of a book.” Her novel What it Takes to Be Human was praised by The Globe and Mail as “a great novel… [Bowering] does not seek moments to be brilliant: those moments just arrive.” A new novel, The Unfinished World, was published in late 2025. Bill Gaston, author of Juliet Was a Surprise and The World, called The Unfinished World "a beautiful, insightful novel that performs a remarkable trick with history, time, and memory, a brilliant interweaving that is both teasingly cerebral as well as richly heartfelt.”

More Richly in Earth, part memoir and part literary investigation of a 17th century female Scottish Gaelic bard, was published by McGill Queen’s Press in 2024 and was long-listed for the Saltire Prize. The Scottish Gaelic writer Maoilios Caimbeul called it "a major work."

Marilyn Bowering is also an award-winning poet and librettist. Jan Zwicky says of Bowering, Her brilliant imagistic gift is always offered in service to the mystery of insight, the other invisible worlds gathered close in this one. Bowering’s poetry includes Human Bodies: Collected Poems 1987-1999, Green, an interplay of form and conversations and Soul Mouth, a book of story and memoir poems. With Threshold (photographs by Xan Shian), Marilyn Bowering extends the conversation to an encounter with a 17th century female Scottish Gaelic bard. Of What Is Long Past Occurs in Full Light (illustrations by Ken Laidlaw), Jan Zwicky comments, Despite her unflinching acknowledgement of the horrors humans visit on themselves and others, her vision is grounded in the subtle integrity of love. A new book of poetry, Frayed Linens, will be published in November 2025.

Marilyn Bowering has received many poetry prizes including the Ruth and David Lampe Award, the Gwen MacEwen Poetry prize, the Pat Lowther Prize, the Dorothy Livesay Prize, several National Magazine Awards, two nominations for the Governor General’s award, and shortlisting for the Prix Italia and the Sony Award. An opera, Marilyn Forever (composer Gavin Bryars), has received production premieres (2013-2022) in Victoria, BC; Long Beach, Ca.; Adelaide, Australia; Vienna, Austria; Oxford and Glasgow, UK; and Hagen and Saarbrücken, Germany. Bowering’s work has been translated into a number of languages including Spanish, Finnish, German, Romanian, Russian, and Punjabi.
Marilyn Bowering was born in Winnipeg and grew up in Victoria, BC. She has lived in various parts of Canada and in Greece, Scotland and Spain and now makes her home on Vancouver Island.