Second Generation

Born and raised in Winnipeg, poet Miriam Waddington (b. Dworkin) was surrounded by a rich, intellectual circle of Yiddish-speaking secular and socialist Jews. In 1930, her family moved to Ottawa, and there the young poet’s writing developed under the guidance of the Yiddish poet Ida Maze. Initially trained as a social worker, Waddington joined the English department at Toronto’s York University in 1962, where her creativity flourished as a poet, critic, and translator.