Colin Morton (born 1948) is a Canadian poet.

Personal life

Morton was born in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

, but grew up in

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

and has worked as a teacher and editor. His poetry and fiction have appeared in ''Descant'', ''The Fiddlehead'', ''Arc'', ''Grain'', ''The Malahat Review'', ''Ascent'', and ''The North American Review'' among many other publications. He was a member of the performance group ''First Draft'' which recorded, published, and performed some 40 times across Canada in the 1980s. More recently, his poetry has explored aspects of world history. In 1986 and again in 2001 he won the

Archibald Lampman Award The Archibald Lampman Award is an annual Canadian literary award, created by Blaine Marchand, and presented by the literary magazine ''Arc'', for the year's best work of poetry by a writer living in the National Capital Region. History The a ...

for poetry. His book of poetry ''The Merzbook'' was inspired by the life and work of

Kurt Schwitters Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters (20 June 1887 – 8 January 1948) was a German artist who was born in Hanover, Germany. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including dadaism, constructivism, surrealism, poetry, sound, pain ...

, and was the basis for a dramatic production, ''The Cabbage of Paradise''. The sound-poem, ''Primiti Too Taa'', based on Schwitters' ''Ursonate (Sonata in primitive sounds)'', was made into an animated short film by Ed Ackerman, featuring Morton's voice and a

stop-motion Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...

animation of moving letters, made using a typewriter. It received several awards, including a Bronze Apple. His book ''The Hundred Cuts: Sitting Bull and the Major'' is a poetic documentary about the exile in Canada of Lakota chief Sitting Bull, and his relationship with Major James Walsh of the NWMP. He lives in

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

, Ontario.

Selected bibliography

* * *''In Transit'' (1981), http://capa.conncoll.edu/morton.tran.htm *''This Won't Last Forever'' (1985), http://capa.conncoll.edu/morton.last.htm *''The Merzbook: Kurt Schwitters Poems'' (1987), http://capa.conncoll.edu/morton.merzbook.html *''How to Be Born Again'' (1982), *''Oceans Apart'' (1995), (novel) *''Coastlines of the Archipelago'' (2000), *''Dance, Misery'' (2003), *''The Cabbage of Paradise'' (2007), *''The Local Cluster'' (2008), *''The Hundred Cuts: Sitting Bull and the Major'' (2009), *''Winds and Strings'' (2013),

Edited

*''The Scream: First Draft, the third annual group show'' Ouroboros (1984), *

References

External links

Poetry and fiction by Colin Morton
*https://web.archive.org/web/20091007230844/http://www.poets.ca/linktext/direct/morton.htm *http://library.stmarytx.edu/pgpress/authors/colin_morton/index.html 1948 births Living people 20th-century Canadian poets Canadian male poets Writers from Calgary Writers from Ottawa Writers from Toronto 20th-century Canadian male writers {{Canada-poet-stub