ANN ELIZABETH CARSON, BA (Hons.) U of T ’51, M.Ed. U of T ’70, Arscura School of Art (Toronto) ’85—poet, writer, sculptor, feminist and one of ‘Toronto’s Mille Femmes’ (2008 Luminato Festival, which paid tribute to women who have made a contribution to the arts). ANN ELIZABETH has devoted her careers in psychotherapy and writing to understanding the silenced voices in our society, and to attempting to give them a place through her work. She is fascinated by the intersection of word with sound, visual images and movement and delighted to be working across artistic boundaries with writers, musicians, painters and dancers.
Born in 1929 in Toronto, the year of the great crash, Ann’s generation lived through the Depression, the polio outbreak that lasted for many years until a vaccine was discovered, and the five long and terrible years of World War II, which permeated everyone’s lives for decades: a childhood, adolescence and young adulthood of anxiety, deprivation, restrictions as women “made do” and discovered new roles as the men fought in Europe.
Ann began writing and publishing in high school, continued during her undergraduate university years, her marriage, divorce and while raising a family of four children. In 1970, she earned a Master’s in Adult Education and Counselling at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, worked for the Ontario Civil Service in the department that launched the first EAP (Employee Assistance Program) in Ontario, and then for many years as a counsellor, supervisor and instructor at York University, and in private practice.
In 1988, Ann explored art as a therapeutic discipline in a two-year course at Arscura Art School: a happy convergence of artistic and therapeutic worlds as images in colour, clay and movement infused poetry, story, expressive therapies and a variety of workshops. Expressions of Memoir, What’s the Difference: Exploring Poetry and Poetic Prose, and Solutions in Your Hands: How
the Arts Can Create a New Perspective on How We See Ourselves and Our World “opened up new approaches not only to our work, but also to how we solve problems professionally and in our personal lives.” (Margo Little, The Manitoulin Expositor)
As she looks back on the long “laundry line” of her life strung with memories, Ann dares to voice family secrets, social stereotypes and cultural taboos. In a rare combination of visceral, sensuous prose and poetry, she explores stories of resilience, betrayal, deep loss and enduring love that shaped her life, why they are important to her now, how they relate to the lives of women and men and to the global issues of today.
Ann’s work has appeared in many journals, magazines and anthologies. Her first book, Shadows Light, poetry and sculpture, was published in 2005 followed by My Grandmother’s Hair, how family stories shape our lives, 2006; The Risks of Remembrance, collected poems, 2010; We All Become Stories, challenging stereotypes of memory and aging, 2013; Laundry Lines, a poetic memoir, 2015; Filling the Ark, stories and poems, 2019; Loose Ends, reflections, 2022 and Another Open Door, new and selected work, 2023.
A long-time summer resident on Manitoulin Island, Ann Elizabeth continues to write, display her sculptures and read from her work in Toronto and on Manitoulin Island. Popular on the reading circuit, Ann especially enjoys collaborating with other poets, writers, artists, dancers and musicians in interactive multimedia events—spoken word accompanied by paintings, sculptures
and music.
Ann Carson is a member of Ruah, a Creation/Earth-centred spirituality group where she leads the study group, the League of Canadian Poets, the Ontario Poetry Society, the Manitoulin Writer’s Circle, the Tower Poetry Society, the Older Women’s Network and the Toronto Heliconian Club for professional women in the arts in the Literature and Humanities sections.
She enjoys the lively company of her three surviving children, six grandchildren, her great granddaughter and a circle of extended family and friends in music and theatre gatherings, gardening, gallery hopping, bookstore browsing and as much time as possible in nature.
Artwork
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Psychotherapy
Ann Elizabeth Carson is a recently retired psychotherapist and consultant in private practice. She worked with individuals, couples and families with a particular interest in life-stage transitions, memory, brain plasticity and expressive therapies. As an older person Ann brought both personal experience and professional expertise to helping older people and their families with the redefinition of our meanings of health, of the aging process and of being elderly. Her own experience with several debilitating chronic illnesses made her sensitive to the individual, familial and work-related areas of concern that individuals and their families must deal with, and alerted her to alternative and community resources for health care.
Family
A bit of history
