Milton Acorn
Milton was born in Prince Edward Island, grew up in Charlottetown and moved to Montreal in 1956.
In Montreal he published some of his early poems in the political magazine, New Frontiers. That same year he self-published a mimeographed chapbook, In Love and Anger, his first collection of poems. In the 1950s some of his poetry was published in the magazine Canadian Forum.
In the mid-1960s, he moved to Vancouver and joined the League for Socialist Action. In 1967, Acorn helped found the "underground" newspaper The Georgia Straight in Vancouver, BC. In 1969 he published his poetry collection I've Tasted My Blood.
Acorn was awarded the Canadian Poets Award in 1970 and the Governor General's Award in 1976 for his collection of poems, The Island Means Minago.
In 1977, Acorn introduced the Jackpine sonnet, a form designed to be as irregular and spikey (and Canadian) as a jack pine tree, but with internal structure and integrity. Without a fixed number of lines and with varied line lengths, the Jackpine sonnet depends on interweaving internal rhymes, assonance and occasional end-rhymes.
Photo by Christian Kuntz Photography
Photo from Fine Art American