• Share this:

It is with heavy hearts that we say goodbye to former Coach House Press board member, author, and longtime friend, David McFadden. He passed away yesterday at the age of 77 after a long battle with Alzheimer's, a diagnosis he made public in 2014 via this Toronto Life article. His death comes a day before the award of the $65,000 Griffin Prize for Poetry, for which McFadden was nominated in 2008 and which he won in 2013 for his collection What’s The Score?, one of nearly three dozen that he penned during his lifetime. Coach House had the honour of publishing Letters from the Earth to the Earth (1968), two volumes of The Great Canadian Sonnet (1970–71, reissued in 2001), Poems Worth Knowing (1976), The Poet's Progress (1977), A Trip Around Lake Huron (1980), A Trip Around Lake Erie (1981), and Animal Spirits (1983). 

We offer condolences to his family, his many friends, and his admirers. Dave will be greatly missed by all of us here at Coach House. The poetry community will forever be indebted to his work, and we hope that his work will continue to find new readers for a long time to come. A funeral service will be held next Saturday, June 16th at 11 am at St. Anne's Anglican Church on Gladstone Avenue between College and Dundas Streets.