Margaret Norris was born in 1877 on a small farm in Perth County, Ontario. Graduating in 1899 from the medical school at Northwestern University in Chicago, she became Lord Kitchener’s medical advisor in India and provided medical care and better lives to the prostitutes who had been following his army. She also founded a hospital for lepers. She married fellow Canadian and physics professor John Patterson in India.
After they returned to Canada she distinguished herself in the fight against the Spanish Flu and in various social causes. She became Ontario’s first female judge and presided over the Toronto Women’s Court for 12 years.
Her nephew, Sam, inherited the family farm. They were close for their whole lives. Margaret died in late 1962 and Sam in early 1964. The Margaret and Sam Poems detail their imagined deathbed conversations. This excerpt includes four early poems.
* the poems, in their entirety, are available in the printed version of the current issue.
Bio:
Richard Brait is a corporate lawyer living in Toronto. He has an MFA in Poetry from Bennington College. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming in TickleAce, Queen’s Quarterly, EVENT, the New Quarterly, Exile Quarterly, and the Dalhousie Review. He was shortlisted for the Fish Anthology Lockdown Prize in 2020, the Dr William Henry Drummond Poetry Prize in 2022, and is the 2021 winner of the Gwendolyn MacEwen Poetry Competition for Emerging Writers.