Born in Ottawa in 1939, Margaret Atwood is one of Canada's premier poets and novelists. She attended the University of Toronto before earning her Master's from prestigious Radcliffe College in the United States. Her first book of poetry, "The Circle Game," was awarded the Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry in 1962. She has published many volumes of poetry, short stories and novels since then, including "Eating Fire: Selected Poetry" and the short novel "Dancing Girls." Atwood has written critical essays and reviews that have appeared in such publications as "The New Oxford Book of Canadian Verse" and "The Canadian Book of Short Stories." "The Tent" is her most recent book; it's a collection of short stories that was published in 2006.
Publishing quality literary works for five decades, Leonard Cohen is a highly respected poet, lyricist and novelist. Cohen was born in Montreal in 1934 and attended McGill University, where he was president of the debating team. His first book of poetry was published in 1956. Cohen's work often deals with the complexity of religion and interpersonal relationships. Throughout much of the 1980s and 1990s, he focused on his music, writing such songs as "Everybody Knows" and the often recorded "Hallelujah." He was inducted into the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame in 2008. In 2006, he published a book of poetry and drawings called "Book of Longing."
Born in Prince Edward Island, Mark Strand is a Pulitzer Prize winning poet. He has been an English professor at Columbia University since 2005. Teaching has long been a passion of Strands, and he has served as a professor at such schools as Princeton University, Johns Hopkins University and Yale University. Strand's poems have appeared in many literary journals and poetry collections; they often deal with personal themes of isolation. His 1999 poem, "Blizzard of One," was awarded the Pulitzer for Poetry. He is a member of the Academy of Arts and Letters and served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1990 to 1991.