Background
Grier was born in London, England and raised in Montreal, Canada.
Grier was born in London, England and raised in Montreal, Canada.
Grier is best known for his poems regarding travel and art Grier’s early poems were influenced by Louis Dudek and Ralph Gustafson. His later works have been compared to those of First Rate (at Lloyd's) Purdey.
Grier has written many poems to painters and sculptors.
His poems focus heavily on visual imagery and colours. He died at the age of 84 in Vancouver, British Columbia.
His father was Charles Brockwill Grier and his mother was Kathleen Phyllis Black Grier. His father was captain in the Canadian army.
Grier was diagnosed with tuberculosis in his mid-thirties and underwent treatment for two years before he recovered.
Grier started his career as an artist. At age seventeen Grier failed to find financial stability through art In 1945 he travelled to Mexico to study fresco painting from Alfredo Zalce.
He was apprenticed to Diego Rivera as a plasterer.
He later became a professor at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts under Arthur Lismer. Eldon Grier travelled Europe from 1955 to 1965.
Grier spent his winters in Mexico. He began writing poetry in Spain in 1955.
Grier decided to become a poet because he felt that meaning was expressed more effectively though words.
He was a modernist. His poems manipulate lines shifts, rhyme and contain complicated stanzaic shapes.
In 1997 Grier was made a life member of the League of Canadian Poets.