Wednesday, July 6, 2022
My first meeting with Mary was in a conference that she had called with the chairman of the English department at UNBSJ, because she didn't want me in her introductory poetry class. "Look at this essay on Jon Stallworthy!," she said. "I can't teach him anything." I disagreed, and won the opportunity to stay in the course. Over the following three years, she taught me enough to get me admitted to the University of Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship; enough for me to graduate from a program in which Jon Stallworthy was one of the instructors; enough for me to teach poetry on stipend at UNB myself, and become a book critic, and then a journalist. And of all the things I will be forever grateful to Mary for, this is of the least importance.
Her generosity to friends and students knew no bounds. She shared her office, her books, her table, her home. She shared her wit and insight and wisdom - prodigious quantities of each - and what we came away learning was how to be the best version of ourselves; how to be courageous and resilient; how to use our hearts and minds; how to live with verve and panache and style; and how to imbue every moment of life, however challenging, with poetry and meaning. Peter was an expert at these things, too; and life was richer for having them in it.
She was immensely proud of Tor, and her daughter-in-law, and her grandchildren, and justly so. Please accept my deepest condolences. She was a remarkable person.
