Leo Kennedy
| Leo Kennedy | |
|---|---|
| Born | John Leo Kennedy August 22, 1907 Liverpool, U.K. |
| Died | 2000 Pasadena, California |
| Pen name | Arthur Beaton, Leonard Bullen, William Crowl, Helen Laurence, Edgar Main, Peter Quinn |
| Language | English |
| Citizenship | British subject |
| Genre | poetry, social criticism |
| Notable works | The Shrouding |
| Spouse |
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| Children |
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John Leo Kennedy (August 22, 1907 – 2000) was a Canadian poet and critic, who in the 1920s and 1930s was a member of the Montreal Group of modernist poets. The Canadian Encyclopedia says of him that "Kennedy helped change the direction of Canadian poetry in the 1920s."
Born in Liverpool, England, Kennedy emigrated with his family – his father, John Kennedy, a ship chandler, and his mother, Lillian Bullen – to Canada in 1912. Leo Kennedy quit school at 14, after having to repeat Grade 6; "he took to the sea and held a variety of jobs." In the mid-1920s Kennedy was writing an advice column for the Montreal Star under the name "Helen Laurence."
In the early 1920s he was writing an advice column for the Montreal Star. At the same time, "he was admitted to the Montreal campus of Laval (now the Université de Montréal), where he studied English for two years."
"While working at various jobs, Kennedy became affiliated with Leon Edel and others in the McGill Group" or Montreal Group. Becoming a "friend of A.J.M. Smith, F.R. Scott, A.M. Klein, and Leon Edel, he contributed to the McGill Literary Supplement and then to its replacements, the McGill Fortnightly Review, and Canadian Mercury."
After the Fortnightly ceased in 1927, Kennedy and Scott founded the Canadian Mercury in 1928, which put out seven issues through 1929: "though short-lived, the magazine published important work by the editors (including Kennedy's manifesto 'The Future of Canadian Literature') as well as by Smith and A.M. Klein."
The Crash of 1929 destroyed the Mercury, but Kennedy continued to write and publish. "During the Depression he regularly contributed poems, short stories, and essays to the Canadian Forum and Saturday Night." By that time he was a family man, with a wife, Miriam, and a son, Stephen.
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Wikipedia