Dossier 2000.6.03.1.106 - "Head Out: a letter essay poem to Cecil Giscombe"

Barry McKinnon was born in 1944 in Calgary, Alberta. He studied at Mount Royal College for two years and in 1965 he attended Sir George Williams University in Montreal. He studied poetry with Irving Layton and received a BA in English and Psychology in 1967. He graduated with an MA degree in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia in 1969, and in the same year became an English instructor at the College of New Caledonia in Prince George, BC until his retirement in 2005. He received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 2006 from the University of Northern British Columbia, the highest award presented by the university in recognition of outstanding public service of national significance. Barry has been widely published and extensively involved in the Prince George and British Columbia literary community, both as a writer and as a publisher, editor, and designer, and has achieved national recognition. The Caledonia Writing Series and Gorse Press contain 125 titles. These include Victoria Walker’s Suitcase, winner of the BC Book Award, and George Bowering’s Quarters, winner of the bp Nichol Award. In 1981 Gorse Press won the Malahat Review Award for excellence in letterpress and broadside design. He has authored 15 books of poetry and numerous journal and anthology publications. In 1981, his work "The The" was short-listed for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry and "Pulplog" won the Dorothy Livesay Prize (BC Book Awards) for 1991. He won the bp Nichol Chapbook Award for "Arrythmia" in 1994, and for "Bolivia/Peru" in 2004. He has also organized more than 100 readings in Prince George, attracting the likes of Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, and former Prince George writer Brian Fawcett. Over the course of nearly four decades, Barry has inspired generations of northern writers and added his own poetic voice to the nation’s literary culture.