Edna Jaques

Edna Parliament Jaques (17 January 1891 – 13 September 1978) was a Canadian poet. Born in Collingwood, Ontario, and raised on a homestead in Saskatchewan, by the 1950s, she was "possibly the best-selling poet of her generation."

Biography When Jaques was born, her father was a ship's captain on the Great Lakes. In 1902, when Jaques was 11, the family moved to a homestead about southeast of Moose Jaw. The family homestead later became the town of Briercrest, Saskatchewan:

After high school, wanting to see the world, Jaques travelled west, working as an itinerant seamstress to pay her way; in Calgary, she stopped. There, in 1918, she wrote a poetic response to John McCrae's "In Flanders' Fields", which was to become her most famous poems. Recognizing Jaques's talents, the editor of the Calgary Herald offered to pay for her to attend university. After a short stint with the Vancouver Province, she returned to Saskatchewan. She married farmer William Ernest Jamieson (1889–1942) on 30 November 1921, in Moose Jaw.

In 1935, Jaques sent Joyce—now 12 years old—back to Briercrest, while she engaged more completely in her public lectures and other work for women's institutes. where she "operated a fifteen-ton powder press." She died in Toronto on 13 September 1978.

Literary production As a young girl, Jaques was "constantly jotting down rhymes on scraps of paper," Her first poem was published in the Moose Jaw Times in 1904, when she was 13 years old.

Jaques's poem "In Flanders Now", first published in the Calgary Herald, was later "printed on a card along with the Belgian National Anthem [and] was sold throughout the United States at 10¢ a copy and raised one million dollars for war relief." It was also recited at the dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery in 1921 and a copy placed in the memorial chapel.

Jaques was a prolific poet. She wrote 10 volumes of poetry as well as considerable contributions of poetry and articles to newspapers and journals. For 30 years, the Saskatchewan Farmer magazine published a poem of hers every month, and over the space of 20 years, the Vancouver Province was publishing 10 of her poems per month. Jaques was one of "Canada’s best-selling poet[s,] with an annual sale of five thousand volumes." Her total poetic outputs is calculated at over 3000 poems, and at the time of her death, her books are said to have sold over 250,000 copies.

Volumes of poetry Jaques published the following volumes of poetry:

Wide Horizons (Moose Jaw, SK: Moose Jaw Times, 1934)

Drifting Soil (Moose Jaw, SK: Moose Jaw Times, 1934)

My Kitchen Window (Toronto: Allen, 1935)

Dreams in Your Heart (Toronto: Allen, 1937)

Beside Still Waters (Toronto: Allen, 1939)

Britons Awake (Toronto: Allen, 1940)

Aunt Hattie's Place (Toronto: Allen, 1941)

Verses for You (Moose Jaw, SK: Moose Jaw Writers’ Club, )

Roses in December (Toronto: Allen, 1944)

Back-Door Neighbors (Toronto: Allen, 1946)

Hills of Home (Toronto: Allen, 1948)

Fireside Poems (Toronto: Allen, 1950)

The Golden Road (Toronto: Allen, 1953)