Tag Archives: Book of Lists

1. Authors Margaret Atwood and Graeme Gibson: Atwood had just been passed over for the Governor General’s Award for poetry in 1970 when she attended a party for another slighted poet, Milton Acorn, at Grossman’s Tavern in Toronto. Acorn received the first People’s Poet award that night from supportive peers—including Atwood and Graeme Gibson. Gibson was another loser that year, in the fiction category, and Atwood reportedly said to him, “I thought your book should have won the Governor General’s Award.” In the ensuing years, he would photograph and interview her; they became lovers and partners after his marriage to Shirley Gibson had ended.