George Harry Bowering, OCOBC (born December 1, 1935) is a prolific Canadian novelist, poet, historian, and biographer. He was the first Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate.
He was born in Penticton, British Columbia, and raised in the nearby town of Oliver, where his father was a high-school chemistry teacher. Bowering is author of more than 100 books.
Bowering is the best-known of a group of young poets including Lionel Kearns, Frank Davey, Fred Wah, Jamie Reid, and David Dawson, who studied together at the University of British Columbia in the 1960s. There they founded the journal TISH. In the late 1960s Bowering's work was published in 0 to 9 magazine, an avant-garde journal which experimented with language and meaning-making.
When the Indian Hungryalist, also known as Hungry generation, poet Malay Roy Choudhury, was arrested at Kolkata, India, Bowering brought out a special issue of Imago for helping the Indian poet in his trial.
2008: According to Brueghel, North Vancouver: Capilano
2008: Shall I Compare, Penticton: Beaver Kosmos
2009: A Little Black Strap, St. Paul: Unarmed
2013: Los Pájaros de Tenacatita, Ootischenia: Nose-in-Book
2016: Sitting in Jalisco, Ootischenia: Nose-in-Book
2016: That Toddlin Town, Ottawa: above/ground books
2019: David in Byzantium, Cobourg: Proper Tales Press
Memoirsedit
1993: The Moustache: Memories of Greg Curnoe, Toronto: Coach House Books
2001: A Magpie Life, Toronto: Key Porter
2002: Cars, Toronto: Coach House Books
2006: Baseball Love, Vancouver: Talonbooks
2011: How I Wrote Certain of my Books, Toronto: Mansfield Press
2016: The Hockey Scribbler, Toronto: ECW Press
2016: The Dad Dialogues (with Charles Demers), Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press
Historyedit
1996: Bowering's B.C., Toronto: Viking
1999: Bowering, George (1999). Egotists and Autocrats: The Prime Ministers of Canada. Toronto, New York City: Viking. ISBN 978-0-670-88081-2. OCLC 45066615. Also published in 2000 by Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-027550-6. OCLC 44545832.
2003: Stone Country, Toronto: Viking
Playsedit
1962: "The Home for Heroes", Vancouver: Prism
1966: "What Does Eddie Williams Want?", Montreal: CBC-TV
1972: "George Vancouver", Vancouver: CBC radio network
1973: "Sitting in Mexico", Vancouver: CBC radio network
1986: "Music in the Park", Vancouver: CBC radio network
1989: "The Great Grandchildren of Bill Bissett's Mice", Vancouver: CBC radio network
Editionsedit
The 1962 Poems of R.S. Lane, Toronto: Ganglia Press, 1965
Vibrations: poems of youth, Toronto, Gage, 1970
The Story so Far, Toronto, Coach House, 1972
The City in her Eyes by David Cull, Vancouver: Vancouver Community Press, 1972
Imago Twenty, Vancouver, Talonbooks, 1974
Cityflowers by Artie Gold, Montreal: Delta Canada, 1974
Letters from Geeksville: letters from Red Lane 1960-64, Prince George: Caledonia Writing Series, 1976
Great Canadian Sports Stories, Ottawa: Oberon Press, 1979
Fiction of Contemporary Canada, Toronto: Coach House Books, 1980
Loki is Buried at Smoky Creek: selected poems of Fred Wah, Vancouver: Talonbooks, 1981
My Body was Eaten by Dogs: selected poems of David McFadden, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, New York: CrossCountry, 1981
"1945-1980," in Introduction to Poetry: British, American, Canadian, David and Lecker, Toronto: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1981
The Contemporary Canadian Poem Anthology, Toronto: Coach House Books, 1983
Sheila Watson and The Double Hook: the artist and her critics, Ottawa: Golden Dog Press, 1984
Taking the Field:the best of baseball fiction, Red Deer: RDC Press, 1990
Likely Stories: a postmodern sampler (with Linda Hutcheon), Toronto: Coach House Books, 1992
An H in the Heart: Selected works of bpNichol (with Michael Ondaatje), Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1994
And Other Stories, Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2001
The 2008 Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology, Toronto: House of Anansi, 2008
The Heart Does Break (with Jean Baird), Toronto: Random House, 2009
Griffin Poetry Prize reading, including video clip
The Holy Life of the Intellect link provides transcription & audio for an essay Bowering first read on National Public Radio (NPR) "Weekend Edition" on August 19, 2007
Canadian Poetry Online: George Bowering Archived 2011-05-14 at the Wayback Machine - Biography and 6 poems (Van. Can., Hillside Sun, Musing on Some Poets, Wolf Between the Trees, There is, How Odd Men Are Really)
Judith Fitzgerald and George Bowering in an Excellent Conversation on Poetry & Poetics Archived 2011-02-09 at the Wayback Machine