• Who am I?• What do I write?• Who were my influences?• My writing style• My contemporaries• The poem• Its message• Its themes• Its structure• What you might be asked about it…!

Elizabeth Winifred Brewster- Born 1922 August 26 In Chipman, New Brunswick- Is a Canadian poet and academic- Received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of New

Brunswick a Master of Arts degree from Radcliffe College, a Bachelor of Library Science from the University of Toronto, the and a Ph.D. from Indiana University.

- Was a Professor at the University of Saskatchewan.- In 2001, she was made a Member of the Order of Canada,

Canada's highest civilian honor.- Received the President's Medal from the University of Western

Ontario (1979) and a Litt. D. from the University of New Brunswick.

- Elizabeth Brewster was a founding member of the important Canadian literary magazine THE FIDDLEHEAD. Recipient of the Lifetime Award for Excellence in the Arts from the Saskatchewan Arts Board and a Member of the Order of Canada.

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Notable Works She has been writing and publishing

poetry for more than fifty years. Besides poetry, she also writes novels. Her most famous  work is "Where I come from", and other poems include "Passage of Summer", "Sunrise North", "Lillooet", "The Way Home" and "Spring Again". Her non-poetry works include "The Sisters", "It's easy to fall on the Ice", "Junction", "Away from Home", and more. Her first published poem was "East Coast" in 1951.

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InfluencesBack to main page

Her main influence was her background and her childhood because she grew up in the country side, and the love for nature and her country certainly influenced all her works.

Writing Style - She writes realistically and effectively from her

experiences- Her work expresses her struggles, fantasies,

judgments, and triumphs- Her poetry is modernist as she was published in the

era of the second generation Canadian modernism- Her vocabulary is trim and conversational, her use

of metaphors, allusions and similes restrained- language is mostly clear, straightforward for the

reader- Her early writing was in rhyming, metered verse but

even with her move to free verse in the late fifties, her lines remained just as tight and measured

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Contemporaries Elizabeth Brewster was born in 1922 and started writing

poetry in around the 1950s. Some of her contemporaries are:

•D.G. Jones- Canadian poet, translator and educator•Alden Nowlan - Canadian poet, novelist and playwright• P.K. Page - Poet and writer•Richard Eberhart - American poet•Stephen Spender - English poet, novelist and essayist

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Poem

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Poetic Devices• One of the main poetic devices used in Where I come from is

a metaphor. The whole poem is basically made out of metaphors, some examples are; “ nature tidily plotted” which conveys a feeling of artificial and tidiness.

• In the poem stanza one is all about the city and stanza two is all about the countryside. If you physically move the two stanzas together you will see that they fit together perfectly, and then they are joined they make up her life. This illustrates that the poem is a metaphor of her life.

• One of the most vital things in this poem is punctuation. Punctuation is used to slow down the poem

Message Where I come from is talking about the decision

on whether to live in the countryside or the city. By using many poetic techniques, Elizabeth Brewster successfully describes the city as a controlled place with routine and the countryside a place of natural beauty. In the end you see her idealized countryside shatter into pieces when she realizes it wasn’t as good as it seemed.

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ThemesThemes include:•Nostalgia – The poet reminisces about her past •People being influenced by their surroundings•Loss of identity•You cannot forget your past•Idealization of past experiencesBack to main page

Structure• This poem is written in free verse and it contains

3 stanzas.• There is no rhyme scheme and the poem doesn’t

rhyme until the last two lines.• Lots of punctuation is used to slow down the

poem to show the poet thinking• The three stanzas almost fit together like a puzzle

if they were squished together. This represents her life being torn between city and countryside, and of course, the feeling of nostalgia.

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What you might be asked about • Explore the ways in which the poet vividly conveys his

delight in nature• Explore some descriptions you find particularly

effective• Show how the poet finds beauty in the world• Explore the ways in which nature is made attractive to

you in this poem• How do the poet’s words vividly reveal his feelings to

you?• Explore the ways in which the poet appeals so

powerfully to your senses in this poem.Back to main page