Present Poetry Podcast

Virna Sheard was born Virna Stanton on April 12, 1860, just after the Vernal Equinox. She lived in Cobourg, Ontario, with her aunt as her parents- photographer Eldridge Stanton and his wife Elizabeth- traveled through the US taking war pictures. She later moved to Toronto to attend school and remained there for the rest of her life. In 1884, she married Dr. Charles Sheared, Toronto's first chief medical officer, and began the journey to motherhood. Unfortunately, her first set of twins were stillborn, but Virna never gave up hope and ended up with four sons: Charls Jr., Paul, Joseph, and Terence. In 1889, Virna composed her first poems and submitted them to a popular children's magazine. With the editor's encouragement, she regularly contributed poems and short stories to several magazines across Canada and the US- including St. Nicholas, the Globe, Saturday Night, New England Magazine, and more. Her first novel, Trevelyan's Little Daughters, came out in 1898 and displayed a rare sensitivity to a child's perspective. However, as her children grew, so did her writing, and she began writing for more mature audiences when her sons entered school. Her first volume of poetry, The Miracle and Other Poems, came out in 1913 and was dedicated to her younger brother, Eldridge Jr., who died during the Niagra Falls Ice Bridge incident in 1912. Despite her husband's reluctance to support Vina's writing, she produced seven novels and six collections of poetry before her death. She was regarded as one of Canada's best-known poets and authors. Virna Sheard passed on February 22, 1943, in her hometown of Toronto. She was 83. We are reading from Carry On, a collection of poems published in 1917 under the Distinguished Patronage of the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire in Aid of the Red Cross. —————————————————- Are you a poet? Want your work to be on the podcast? Then email presentpoetrypodcast@gmail.com with your submissions, or check out the form at LadyErynn.com! Also, don't forget to like, subscribe, and share! — Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/erynn-crittenden6/support