Pat Lowther 1935 - 1975

Pat Lowther was a working class mother of four. She wrote startling and transcendent poetry about nature, culture, politics, science, family and sensuality. She worked as NDP constituent secretary and was repeatedly elected as a riding delegate and representative to NDP provincial conventions. Struggling with poverty and a violent second husband, she accepted a position with the advisory council of the BC Arts Board. Two of her books were published in her short lifetime, the other four posthumously, most recently a Collected Works (2010) edited by Christine Wiesenthal, who also wrote a biography, The Half-Lives of Pat Lowther (2005), a Governor General's Literary Awards Finalist. Wiesenthal points out that, right before Pat Lowther's death, "the former high school drop-out from the hinterlands of North Vancouver was hectically busy heading a national literary organization, The League of Canadian Poets, and teaching creative writing at the University of British Columbia." Fellow poet Dorothy Livesay was a dear friend. It has been argued that Lowther's "Infinite Mirror Trip"; was the first use of the Planetarium as a total art form. She read her poems at anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, involved her children in efforts to save trees, and loved summer trips to Mayne Island. Her second husband was found guilty of her murder. Every year the Pat Lowther Memorial Award is presented for the best book by a female poet in Canada. Prospect Point is where her ashes were scattered.