Fred Cogswell

Fred Cogswell (BA, MA, PhD, OC, ONB)  poet, professor, editor, publisher, and literary critic, was born in East Centreville on November 8, 1917. Cogswell came from a long and complex lineage. His ancestors, Saxon wool merchants from Essex, England, arrived in New England in 1635 before one family line moved to New Brunswick in the 1760s, settling land vacated after the Acadian expulsions. The family farm at Cogswell Settlement, registered in 1810, was where Fred grew up—deeply rooted in the land, history, and tensions of the province.

His father, Walter Scott Cogswell, was a conservative farmer who resisted modern technology, preferring horses over tractors even as neighbouring farms industrialized. His mother, Florence Ann White, descended from Acadian Girouards, came from an intellectually accomplished family, her own mother was the first Acadian woman in New Brunswick to earn a university degree. Fred grew up aware of this Acadian heritage but deferred exploring it until later in life, out of respect for his father. That personal tension between English and Acadian, tradition and progress, land and intellect, would later shape his literary commitments, especially his work in translation.

A gifted child, Fred Cogswell read at an adult level by age seven and possessed remarkable memory and mathematical ability. Torn between his father’s physical world and his mother’s intellectual expectations, he eventually accepted both as part of his inheritance. He attended a one-room schoolhouse until Grade 9, often seen as eccentric, more interested in butterflies, flowers, and books than playground culture. Poetry entered his life early, especially after discovering “Palgrave’s Golden Treasury”, which sparked a lifelong fascination with poetic form.

After earning a Superior teaching licence in 1936, Cogswell taught briefly in rural schools but found discipline incompatible with his temperament. In 1940, he enlisted in the Canadian Forestry Corps and served overseas in Scotland, where he also attended university lectures whenever possible. During a furlough in Exeter, he met q, an Irish nurse from County Clare. They married in 1944 and were reunited in New Brunswick after the war.

In 1945, Cogswell enrolled at the University of New Brunswick, part of a wave of veterans energized by postwar optimism. He completed a BA at UNB (1949), an MA under Desmond Pacey (1950), and a PhD at the University of Edinburgh (1952). While at UNB, he studied with Alfred G. Bailey and became part of a small but influential circle of poets. Politically active, he worked with the CCF ( Co-operative Commonwealth Federation ), writing speeches and serving briefly as Provincial Secretary. 

Returning to UNB in 1952, Cogswell soon assumed editorial control of The Fiddlehead, transforming it into one of Canada’s most important literary journals through an inclusive and eclectic editorial vision. He later co-founded Fiddlehead Poetry Books, publishing hundreds of poetry collections, often at personal expense, and launching or supporting the careers of poets such as Al Purdy, Alden Nowlan, Dorothy Livesay, and many others. His own first major collection, “The Stunted Strong” (1954), offered vivid portraits of rural New Brunswick life and became deeply influential.

In the late 1960s, troubled by anti-Acadian sentiment surrounding Premier Louis J. Robichaud’s Equal Opportunity reforms, Cogswell immersed himself in French language and literature. His commitment to translation became both artistic and moral, an effort to foster understanding across linguistic and cultural divides. His work introduced many English readers to Acadian voices and helped normalize literary bilingualism in New Brunswick.

Beyond publishing, Fred Cogswell played a key role in shaping Canada’s literary infrastructure, helping to found several national and regional publishing organizations. His motivation was less nationalism than a belief in supporting individual artists at the ground level of their work.

Honours accumulated: a Scroll from Atlantic writers (1980), the Order of Canada (1981), Professor Emeritus status at UNB (1983), and multiple honorary doctorates. Yet the 1980s were also marked by deep personal loss, including the deaths of his wife and eldest daughter. His later poetry reflects sorrow, reconciliation, and a growing philosophical calm.

Throughout the 1990s, Cogswell remained in New Brunswick, mentoring younger writers, translating Acadian poetry, and producing some of his most reflective work. Between 1991 and 2002, he published twelve poetry collections, increasingly focused on memory, solitude, and the sustaining power of art.

In early 2002, he moved to Vancouver to live with his daughter Kathleen. He continued writing until the end, convinced that imagination, not doctrine, was the deepest form of truth.

Fred Cogswell died on June 20, 2004, at the Royal Columbian Hospital in Vancouver, surrounded by his poems, still working, still believing, still writing.

Source: NB Literary Encyclopedia, Tony Tremblay, Summer 2011, St. Thomas University

This post has already been read 1226 times!