The best in four decades of exceptional Canadian poetry, now in a limited hardcover edition.
The poets in this anthology, all of whom matured creatively between 1920 and 1960, considered it one of their primary obligations to modernize Canadian writing, to bring the country's poetry out of late Romantic stasis after the Great War into a fertile and combative response to the cultural, political, technological, philosophical, religious, and economic conditions of the modern era. In their common reaction against Romanticism, and in their commitments to modern poetry's possibilities of profound newness, the poets in this volume make up one great movement in Canada's cultural history. The anthology includes:
• 250 poems by 44 poets
• Regionally diverse voices from Newfoundland, the Maritimes, Quebec, Ontario, the Prairies, and B.C.
• Extensive selections of the work of major poets
• An afterword and biographical headnotes provide important historical and literary context
The poets included in Canadian Poetry from 1920 to 1960 are:
Frank Oliver Call; Louise Morey Bowman; Raymond Knister; Joe Wallace; E.J. Pratt; W.W. E. Ross; F.R. Scott; A.J.M. Smith; Charles Bruce; Earle Birney; A.M. Klein; Dorothy Livesay; Leo Kennedy; Audrey Alexandra Brown; Kenneth Leslie; Robert Finch; Floris Clark McLaren; L.A. Mackay; Anne Marriott; Bertram Warr; Patrick Anderson; P.K. Page; Kay Smith; Miriam Waddington; Margaret Avison; A.G. Bailey; Louis Dudek; John Glassco; Ralph Gustafson; Raymond Souster; Irving Layton; Roy Daniells; Douglas LePan; George Whalley; James Reaney; Elizabeth Brewster; George Johnston; Goodridge MacDonald; Jay MacPherson; Anne Wilkinson; Phyllis Webb; Wilfred Watson; R.A.D. Ford; Eldon Grier.
From the Hardcover edition.
Editorial Preface
FRANK OLIVER CALL (1878–1956)
The Loon’s Cry
To a Greek Statue
LOUISE MOREY BOWMAN (1882–1944)
Sea Sand
The Old Fruit Garden
The Tea Kettle
RAYMOND KNISTER (1899–1932)
Change
The Hawk
The Plowman
Corn Husking VII
JOE WALLACE (1890–1975)
The Five Point Star
All My Brothers Are Beautiful
E.J. PRATT (1882–1964)
Newfoundland
The Shark
Sea-Gulls
From Stone to Steel
The Highway
The Prize Cat
The Titanic
Come Away, Death
The Truant
W.W.E. ROSS (1894–1966)
Reciprocal
The Diver
If Ice
Spring Song
One Leaf
Pine Gum
F.R. SCOTT (1899–1985)
New Paths
The Canadian Authors Meet
Overture
Laurentian Shield
Spain 1937
Will to Win
Lakeshore
Creed
A Grain of Rice
Degeneration
Eclipse
Mount Royal
Winter Sparrows
A.J.M. SMITH (1902–1980)
The Lonely Land
Like an Old Proud King in a Parable
Prothalamium
Noctambule
News of the Phoenix
A Soldier’s Ghost
To a Young Poet
Resurrection of Arp
Son-and-Heir
Political Intelligence
Far West
Ode: The Eumenides
The Common Man
The Wisdom of Old Jelly Roll
CHARLES BRUCE (1906–1971)
Sea Sense
Armistice Day
Tomorrow’s Tide
EARLE BIRNEY (1904–1995)
Slug in Woods
Anglosaxon Street
David
Vancouver Lights
The Road to Nijmegen
Bushed
The Bear on the Delhi Road
El Greco: Espolio
A.M. KLEIN (1909–1972)
Out of the Pulver and the Polished Lens
Heirloom
A Prayer of Abraham, Against Madness
A Psalm of Abraham, Concerning That Which He Beheld Upon the Heavenly Scarp
Montreal
A Psalm Touching Genealogy
Portrait of the Poet as Landscape
Indian Reservation: Caughnawaga
The Rocking Chair
Sonnet Unrhymed
The Break-Up
Grain Elevator
Meditation upon Survival
Political Meeting
DOROTHY LIVESAY (1909–1996)
Green Rain
Testament
Day and Night
Sea Sequence
Signature
Bartok and the Geranium
Lament
On Looking into Henry Moore
The Touching
Leda Again
LEO KENNEDY (1907–2000)
Epithalamium
Rite of Spring (A Fragment)
AUDREY ALEXANDRA BROWN (1904–1998)
Dante’s Beatrice
Candles in the Glass
To Chopin
KENNETH LESLIE (1892–1974)
Early Summer Storm
The Ski Runner
My love is sleeping . . .
The silver herring . . .
ROBERT FINCH (1900–1995)
Window-Piece
Scroll-Section
Train Window
The Smile
The Statue
FLORIS CLARK MCLAREN (1904–1978)
Bits of the Pattern
Frozen Fire
L.A. MACKAY (1901–1982)
Admonition for Spring
Now There Is Nothing Left
Rend Your Heart and Not Your Garments
ANNE MARRIOTT (1913–1997)
The Wind Our Enemy
Prairie Graveyard
Station
BERTRAM WARR (1917–1943)
Working Class
The Deviator
The Heart to Carry On
PATRICK ANDERSON (1915–1979)
Drinker
Rink
Boy in a Russian Blouse
Winter in Montreal
The Ball
Spiv Song
P.K. PAGE (1916–2010)
Generation
The Stenographers
If It Were You
Stories of Snow
The Permanent Tourists
Photos of a Salt Mine
Portrait of Marina
After Rain
Arras
The Metal and the Flower
Reflections in a Train Window
Giovanni and the Indians
Cry Ararat!
Another Space
KAY SMITH (1911–2004)
You in the Feathery Grass
When a Girl Looks Down
Words for a Ballet
The One Stem
MIRIAM WADDINGTON (1917–2004)
The Bond
Green World
Thou Didst Say Me
Childless
The Journeying
The Season’s Lovers
MARGARET AVISON (1918–2007)
The Butterfly
New Year’s Poem
Birth Day
Snow
The Dumbfounding
A. G. BAILEY (1905–1997)
Plague Burial
Thanks for a Drowned Island
LOUIS DUDEK (1918–2001)
A White Paper
On Poetry
A Street in April
from Europe
#19
#48
#95
from En Mexico
[It is most quiet . . . ]
[That it should come into being . . . ]
from Atlantis
[How seagulls know . . . ]
[Marble is the cross-section . . . ]
JOHN GLASSCO (1909–1981)
The Rural Mail
Brummell at Calais
Deserted Buildings Under Shefford Mountain
A Devotion: To Cteis
Utrillo’s World
The Death of Don Quixote
Belly Dance
RALPH GUSTAFSON (1909–1995)
Flight into Darkness
All That Is in the World
Armorial
RAYMOND SOUSTER (B. 1921)
Night of Rain
Young Girls
These Words, This Music
Study: The Bath
Flight of the Roller-Coaster
IRVING LAYTON (1912–2006)
The Swimmer
The Birth of Tragedy
The Cold Green Element
The Improved Binoculars
The Bull Calf
Berry Picking
Cain
For Mao Tse-Tung: A Meditation On Flies and Kings
Whatever Else Poetry is Freedom
Keine Lazarovitch: 1870–1959
Butterfly on Rock
A Tall Man Executes a Jig
There Were No Signs
Rhine Boat Trip
For My Sons, Max and David
ROY DANIELLS (1902–1979)
Epithalamion in Time of Peace
Unsearchable Dispose
DOUGLAS LEPAN (1914–1998)
Angels and Artificers
A Country Without a Mythology
The Wounded Prince
Meditation after an Engagement
GEORGE WHALLEY (1915–1983)
Dieppe
Normandy 1944
from Battle Pattern: Finale
JAMES REANEY (1926–2008)
Antichrist as a Child
The Plum Tree
The Windyard
April
Gifts
ELIZABETH BREWSTER (B. 1922)
In the Library
If I Could Walk Out into the Cold Country
Return of the Native
GEORGE JOHNSTON (1913–2004)
War on the Periphery
Poor Edward
Queens and Duchesses
Time in a Public Ward
GOODRIDGE MACDONALD (1897–1967)
Equestrians in the Spring Night
The Mocking
For You Are a Legion
JAY MACPHERSON (B. 1931)
The Third Eye
The Anagogic Man
The Fisherman
A Garden Shut
No Man’s Nightingale
A Lost Soul
Old Age of the Teddy-Bear
What Falada Said
ANNE WILKINSON (1910–1961)
O don’t you hear the worm
In June and Gentle Oven
Lens
On a Bench in the Park
Poem in Three Parts
The Red and the Green
Nature Be Damned
Variations on a Theme
PHYLLIS WEBB (B. 1927)
Lear on the Beach at Break of Day
Marvell’s Garden
Sprouts the Bitter Grain
Propositions
Breaking
Making
Poetics Against the Angel of Death
Naked Poems Suite 1
WILFRED WATSON (1911–1998)
Graveyard on a Cliff of White Sand
O My Poor Darling
R.A.D. FORD (1915–1998)
A Delusion of Reference
Roadside Near Moscow
ELDON GRIER (1917–2001)
from An Ecstasy:
[This lively morning . . . ]
[This morning I looked . . . ]
View from the Hill
View from a Window – Mexico
Afterword
Sources for Copy-Texts of Poems
Editorial Emendations to Copy-Texts
Index of Authors
Index of Titles and First Lines
From the Hardcover edition.