Canada’s
tenuous claim on one of the 20th Century’s
great poets, Elizabeth Bishop, goes mostly unacknowledged.
Nevertheless, some foraging in the pages listed
below will reveal some truly excellent and potentially
surprising verse.
In Canada, the two best known (Canadian) poems
are probably ‘In Flanders Fields’,
by John McCrae (Canada’s Wilfred Owen, he
died of pneumonia in 1918) and ‘The Cremation
of Sam McGee’, by English-born Robert Service.
It is interesting to contrast the style and tone
of these poems, written by British descendents
when Canada was still a British Dominion, to the
poetry which emerged in Canada after the Statute
of Westminster bestowed official status on Canadian
independence in 1931.
The process of national identity-shift which characterised
the inter-war period is reflected in the poetry
which followed it.
The literary centre of Canada then coalesced in
Montreal, where ‘Anglo-Saxon’ poets
F. R. Scott and A.J.M. Smith mingled with Irish
descendent Leo Kennedy, as well as Louis Dudek,
Irving Layton, and A. M. Klein, all sons of Eastern
European immigrants. Montreal’s dynamic
literary environment would later foster Leonard
Cohen, who, in the 1950s and 60s, achieved more
widespread popularity than any predecessor.
The forging of a ‘Canadian Poetry’
entered a new mode in the 1980s and 90s, with
the emergence of ‘CanLit’ in university
literature departments. This discipline, which
incorporates postcolonialism and other aspects
of Theory, has recentred public and scholarly
attention on Canadian literature. This has tended
to shift focus away from Montreal to Ottawa and
Toronto, where most presses, government offices,
and awards juries find themselves. The relative
commercial and critical success of Canadian novelists
in the national and international arenas has meant
that lately poetry has found itself in the role
of perpetual bridesmaid. However, within the logic
of this system, the recent founding of the Griffin
Poetry Prize, which is, monetarily speaking, the
world’s largest prize for any one single
book of poetry, may go some way to reinvigorating
Canada’s poetry production.
David Williams received his MPhil from the University
of St Andrews School of English in 2003, and is
currently reading for a DPhil at Balliol College,
Oxford. He specialises in 20th/21st Century poetry
and poetics and is writing his thesis on ars
poetica, apologia, and the poet as critic.
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The University of Toronto has perhaps the best
all-around site on Canadian poetry, offering links
to literary journals, announcements of poetry
events, and information on several 19th and 20th
Century poets, including selections of their poetry.
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/
Extensive pool of ‘CanLit’ links,
incorporating poetry and prose. This site is
especially good at collecting critical material
from various internet sources.
http://lucking.net/canlinks/
Canadian Poets Online is rough on the eyes,
but does offer information on 100 Canadian poets,
which can be sorted by time period or region.
http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/faculties/HUM/ENGL/canada/frames.html
This is a Leonard Cohen ‘Fan-site’.
http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com
Literature Online is only accessible if your
educational institution subscribes to the service.
If so, you’ll find here searchable texts
of 12,000 poems written before 1937. LION is
planning to enhance this to a truly comprehensive
and up-to date collection in the near future.
http://collections.chadwyck.co.uk/canpo/search
The Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry
website has biographies of previous years nominees,
together with video and audio of their readings.
http://www.griffinpoetryprize.com/index.html
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