The Year's Work in Canadian Poetry Studies: 1980

Assembles the text and documents the controversy surrounding its authorship through contributions by Linda Dowler ("The Authorship of the'Canadian Boat-Song': A Bibliographical Note"), Elizabeth Waterston ("John Galt and 'The Lone Shieling"'), and Gary Draper ("Tiger Dunlop and the'Canadian Boat-Song"').

Jackel, David. "Goldsmith's Rising Village and the Colonial State of Mind." Studies in Canadian Literature, 5:1 (Spring 1980), 152-166.

Vincent, Thomas B., comp. Jonathan Odell: An Annotated Chronology of the Poems, 1759 - 1818. Kingston: Loyal Colonies Press, 1980. 32 pp.

——, comp. Joseph Howe: An Annotated Chronology of the Poems, 1816 - 1872. [Kingston]: Loyal Colonies Press, 1980. 55 pp.

CONFEDERATION

Adams, John Coldwell. "Charles G.D. Roberts' Later Poetry, 1926 - 1942." Journal of Canadian Poetry, 1:2 (Autumn 1978), 43-58.

Adams contends that Roberts' later poetry represents a "renaissance" upon his return to Canada. Roberts moves toward precision and experimentation in rhythmic and verse patterns focusing his topics more closely on elements within the natural environment.

——. Seated with the Mighty: A Biography of Sir Gilbert Parker. Ottawa: Borealis Press, 1979. 247 pp.

Although Parker was primarily known as novelist and politician, his poetry also receives consideration in this study. Primary and secondary bibliography, pp. 225-239.

Bentley, D.M.R. "Roberts' 'Tantramar Revisited' and Lanier's 'The Marshes of Glynn."' Studies in Canadian Literature, 5:2 (Fall 1980), 316-319.

Discusses relationships based upon Roberts' familiarity with Lanier and the publishing history of Lanier's poem in terms of structural and thematic similarities. Roberts, however, chooses final alignment with a classical elegiac tradition rather than embracing Lanier's Whitmanesque radicalism.

Eggleston, Wilfrid. "Bliss Carman in the Twenties." Journal of Canadian Poetry, 1:2 (Autumn 1978), 59-68.

Recollections of the author's impressions of Carman in poetry readings in Calgary during the early 1920's and subsequently at Queen's University. Also published in Literary Friends, by W. Eggleston (Ottawa: Borealis Press, 1980) 8-16.

Hughes, Kenneth J. "McLachlan's Style." Journal of Canadian Poetry, 1:2 (Autumn 1978), 1-4.

The first 24 lines of Alexander McLachlan's The Emigrant are subjected to analysis revolving around "contrapuntal patterns," seeing natural forces as process, continuity and change as extra-human dimensions.

Mothersill, Sue, ed. "'Style' by Archibald Lampman." Canadian Poetry, no. 7 (Fall/Winter 1980), 56-72.

Mothersill's introduction explains the form and structure of the text and editorial procedures used in preparing it for publication.

Ower, John. "Freedom, Love and Death in the Poetry of George Frederick Cameron." Journal of Canadian Poetry, 1:2 (Autumn 1978), 5-26.

A reappraisal of poems from Lyrics on Freedom, Love and Death (1887) stressing symbolic mythology of Classical intellect and Romantic emotionality which recasts critical perceptions of the Cameron canon.

Stich, K.P., ed. The Duncan Campbell Scott Symposium. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1980. (Reappraisals: Canadian Writers) 157 pp.

——. "The Rising Village, The Emigrant and Malcolm's Katie: The Vanity of Progress." Canadian Poetry, no. 7 (Fall/Winter 1980), 48-55.

Reflections of the nineteenth-century North American symbol of progress became ironized as superficiality, cliché, and paradox in the cultural ambiguities of Goldsmith, McLachlan and Crawford.

Whalen, Terry. "Wilfred Cambell: The Poetry of Celebration and Harmony." Journal of Canadian Poetry, 1:2 (Autumn 1978), 27-41.

Campbell is considered a "searching, religious poet," rather than merely an "able craftsman," through Whalen's reassessing earlier criticism on the basis of Campbell's "more competent" poems in the Romantic and Transcendental traditions.

Wicken, George. "Prelude to Poetry: Lampman and the Rouge et Noir." Canadian Poetry, no. 6 (Spring/Summer 1980), 50-60.

Discusses Lampman's association with the Trinity College journal and his continuing contributions to it and its successor, the Trinity University Review. The Rouge et Noir essays offer illuminating formulations of what would later emerge as significant aspects of Lampman's poetry, both in terms of temperament and in his views of the artist in society.

MODERN

Aichinger, Peter. Earle Birney. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1979. (Twayne's World Authors Series, 538) 180 pp.

Beckmann, Susan. "Java to Geneva: The Making of a Pratt Poem." Canadian Literature, no. 87 (Winter 1980), 6-23. 

Taking the phrase from "From Stone to Steel" as her clue, Beckmann explores the evolution of "The Truant" through successive drafts, with Davis emphasis on Pratt's research and structural changes.

Davey, Frank. Louis Dudek & Raymond Souster. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, [1980]. 198 pp.

Considers Dudek and Souster's independent work as poets and as editors and publishers of Contact Press, co-managed with Irving Layton.

Davis, Richard C. "Tradition and the Individual Talent of Charles Bruce." Dalhousie Review, 59:3 (Autumn 1979), [443]-451.

Davis presses for a reconsideration of Bruce's status, with focus upon both "the genius of his individual talent and . . . the poetic tradition that enables that talent to bear fruit," emphasizing image patterns and time interrelationships in Mulgrave Road, with the anchoring figure of Charles G.D. Roberts in Bruce's background.

Ferns, John. A.J.M. Smith. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1979. (Twayne's World Authors Series, 535) 148 pp.

Fisher, Esther Safer. "The Life and Poetry of Hyman Edelstein." Canadian Poetry, no. 6 (Spring/Summer 1980), 1-13.

Fisher provides a biographical introduction to the poet and his works discussing specific poems in the context of Edelstein's use of the Jewish experience in Canada as a central theme and his sense of cultural idealism in a materialistic age.

Gnarowski, Michael. "New Facts and Old Fictions: Some Notes on Patrick Anderson, 1945 and En Masse." Canadian Poetry, no. 6 (Spring/Summer 1980), 61-68.

Gnarowski counters Anderson's attempts to effect a recasting of literary history in the 1945 Preview-Northern Review period. The interstitial appearance of En Masse suggests a higher degree of political participation than Anderson chose later to acknowledge.

Harvey, Gordon. "A.J.M. Smith and the Classic Shadow." Compass, no. 8 (Winter 1980), 1-28.

Seeing Smith as an amalgamator, Harvey explores manners, mannerisms, imitations and influences of traditional idioms of prominent poets of Smith's period. Harvey urges a critical revaluation of the author's work in criticism as well as poetry in order to reach a balanced assessment.

Jacobs, Maria. "The Personal Poetry of Miriam Waddington." CV II, 5:1 (Autumn 1980), 26-33.

Jacobs documents what she sees as Waddington's expression of emotional uniqueness in common experience, a capacity to render the universal in an uncommon way.

Jakes, Lynn. "Old English Influences in Earle Birney's 'Anglosaxon Street' and 'Mappemounde."' Journal of Canadian Poetry, 2:1 (Winter 1979), 67-75.

Birney employs the resources of his academic specialty to draw ironic comparisons with the modern world through stylistic and thematic comparisons with what seem purer Anglo-Saxon archetypes in the heroic and elegiac traditions.

Keith, W.J. "James Reaney, 'Scrutumnus' and the Critics: An Individual Response." Canadian Poetry, no. 6 (Spring/Summer 1980), 25-34.

Keith responds to the August eclogue of A Suit of Nettles (1958) in its Leavis/Scrutiny analogies, finding its foundations lie in basic misconstructions of Leavist position and lamenting twenty years'critical acquiescence within the Canadian academy as "protective."

Keitner, Wendy. Ralph Gustafson. Boston: Twayne Publishers, [1979]. (Twayne's World Authors Series, 531) 174 pp.

MacLaren, I.S. "The Yeatsian Presence in A.J.M. Smith's 'Like an Old, Proud King in a Parable."' Canadian Poetry, no. 4 (Spring/Summer 1979), 59-64.

Through a close reading of Smith's poem, MacLaren offers points of contact with the later Yeatsian styles which expand into larger issues of "influence" and temperamental adaptation as "inspiration/aspiration."

(Moore, Kathleen C.) "' . . . It is the Heart that Sees': An Interview with F.R. Scott." Athanor, 1:2 (February 1980), 5-10.

'PCP Interview with Fred Cogswell." Poetry Canada Poésie, 1:1 (Fall 1979), 6.

Precosky, Don. "Ever with Discontent: Some Comments on Raymond Knister and His Poetry." CVII, 4:4 (Spring 1980), 3-9.

Explores Knister's role as a "transitional modern" in Canadian poetry, citing the application of new imagistic and free verse styles to more traditional elegiac and pastoral themes.

Redekop, Ernest H. "sun/Son light/Light: Avison's elemental Sunblue." Canadian Poetry, no. 7 (Fall/Winter 1980), 21-37.

Redekop explores the resonance of interpenetrating images in the largely devotional and exegetical poetry of Avison's collection, Sunblue, (1978). The multiplicity of meaning inherent in the specific word establishes relationship between the physical and metaphysical worlds in Avison's poems.

Staines, David. "Elizabeth Bishop, 1911-1979." Canadian Poetry, no. 7 (Fall/Winter 1980), 80-84.

This memorial essay suggests the influences of Bishop's first few years with her maternal grandparents in Great Village, N.S., and frequent visits to the Maritimes as they appeared in her work and fostered a continuing interest in Canada and Canadian literature.

Trehearne, Brian. "A Source for Pratt's Truant?" Canadian Poetry, no. 7 (Fall/Winter 1980), 73-79.

Suggests a likely dramatic derivation of Pratt's "The Truant" in a British children's comic strip, providing as well insight into the larger context of the poem with "comic" intentions as an enlivening factor.

Twigg, Alan. "Dorothy Livesay." [Interview] NeWest ReView, 5:6 (February 1980), 3-4, 15.

Discusses the influences of social concerns upon her work, touching also upon the stylistic impact of oral performance and journalism.

Varma, Prem. "Robert Stead: An Annotated Bibliography." Essays on Canadian Writing, no. 17 (Spring 1980), 141-204.

Warkentin, Germaine. "Scott's 'Lakeshore' and Its Tradition." Canadian Literature, no. 87 (Winter 1980), 42-50.

Considering "Lakeshore" to be central in F.R. Scott's work as a "signal," Warkentin explores what it is a signal of: an urban-rural contrast embodying both pastoral loss of innocence and personal growth through experience.

Warwick, Susan J. "Margaret Laurence: An Annotated Bibliography." In The Annotated Bibliography of Canada's Major Authors, vol. 1. Ed. Robert Lecker and Jack David. Downsview: ECW Press, 1979, 47-[101].

CONTEMPORARY

"Another Solitude?" An Interview with Peter Van Toorn." Montreal Review, 1:1 (Spring/Summer 1979), 36-38.

"An Atlantis Interview with Margaret Atwood." Atlantis, 5:2 (Spring 1980), 202-211.

Bennett, Joy, and James Polson, comps. Irving Layton: A Bibliography 1935-1977. With a foreword by Irving Layton. Montreal: Concordia University Libraries, [1979]. 200 pp.

Bowering, George. "Proofing the World: The Poems of David McFadden." Canadian Poetry, no. 7 (Fall/Winter 1980), 38-47.

A "social picture" of the poet as an inspired romantic amidst a larger "trash culture." Surprising through its subtlety and innocence, McFadden's poetry establishes the poet as "proofreader of God's pages," offering in its collage/mindscatter an image of modern urban life.

Brown, Russell M. "Atwood's Sacred Wells." Essays on Canadian Writing, no. 17 (Spring 1980), 5-43.

Clever, Glenn. "Layton on Layton." CVII, 4:4 (Spring 1980), 18-19.

Clever concludes that Layton the poet speaks more fully and richly than Layton the poetic theorist.

David, Jack, ed. Brave New Wave. [Windsor]: Black Moss Press, [1978]. 226 pp.

Reprinted essays "focusing on the work of 11 poets [Colombo, Ondaatje, McFadden, Davey, Bowering, Marlatt, Nichol, Bissett, Atwood, Newlove, Cohen], born between 1934 and 1944 who came into prominence in the 1960's and 1970's."

Davidson, Arnold E. "The Different Voices in Margaret Atwood's The Journals of Susanna Moodie." CEA Critic, 43:1 (November 1980), 14-20.

Considers landscape as "psychoscape" in the mythic historicism of Atwood's Journals, a complex pattern of apparent perceptions and sub-surface realities.

Fairbanks, Carol. "Margaret Atwood: A Bibliography of Criticism." Bulletin of Bibliography, 36:2 (April/June 1979), 85-90, 98.

Augments and updates Alan J. Horne's "A Preliminary Checklist of Writings by and about Margaret Atwood," Malahat Review, no. 41 (January 1977), 195-222.

Garebian, Keith. "Don Gutteridge's Mythic Tetralogy." Canadian Literature, no. 87 (Winter 1980), 25-41.

Discusses the documentary nature of Gutteridge's Tetralogy (Riel, Coppermine, Borderlands, Tecumseh, 1968-1976). The poet uses history as a point of departure or "core of radiation," from which this series explores encroachment on the land and celebrates a myth of primitivism.

Grace, Sherrill. Violent Duality: A Study of Margaret Atwood. Montreal: Véhicule Press, [1980]. 154 pp.

Henighan, Tom. "Shamans, Tribes, and the Sorcerer's Apprentices: Notes on the Discovery of the Primitive in Modern Poetry." Dalhousie Review, 59:4 (Winter 1979/80), [605]-620.

Explores the shamanic/tribal primitivisms apparent in modern American (Pound, Snyder, Rothenburg) and Canadian West Coast poets such as George Bowering, Susan Musgrave, and Marilyn Bowering, in their attempts to establish roots within myths and rituals founded in nature. Article also published in Arc, no. 2 (Spring 1979).

Johnston, Gordon. "'The Ruthless Story and the Future Tense' in Margaret Atwood's 'Circe/Mud Poems."' Studies in Canadian Literature, 5:1 (Spring 1980), 167-176.

Johnston sees the series, "Circe/Mud Poems" in You Are Happy, as revelatory of Atwood's mythic/historical perspective. Prophetic insight is achieved through a sense of pattern, derived in turn from the fusion of cosmic and earthly levels in the poems' allegories.

Kent, John. "John Kent Interviews Dennis Lee." CVII, 5:1 (Autumn 1980), 14-17.

Layton, Irving. An Unlikely Affair. Oakville: Mosaic Press/Valley Editions, [1980]. 230 pp.

Correspondence between Irving Layton and Dorothy Rath, 1963-1977.

Mahanti, J.C. "The Daemon of the Mind: The Verse of Patrick Lane." Journal of Canadian Poetry, 2:1 (Winter 1979), 57-66.

Summational consideration of Lane's work in terms of the poet's personal development and stylistic patterns.

(Moore, Kathleen C.) "In Conversation with Patrick Lane." Athanor, 1:3 (August 1980), 4-15.

Nodelman, Perry M. "The Collected Photographs of Billy the Kid." Canadian Literature, no. 87 (Winter 1980), 68-78.

Discusses the motif of the photograph in the quest for repose or fixity in Ondaatje's The Collected Works of Billy the Kid. The camera's record creates both personal exposure and chronological arrest.

Norris, Ken. "An Open Letter to David O'Rourke Concerning Montreal Poetry." CVII, 5:1 (Autumn 1980), 52-53.

In replying to O'Rourke's article in CV II, 4:4, Norris defends the commitments and social responsibilities of the Vehicule group, expanding upon the role of regional presses as "community rallying points" in Canadian poetry.

O'Rourke, David. "The Lion in Winters: Irving Layton at York." Canadian Literature, no. 87 (Winter 1980), 52-65.

The "poet," real and projected, in his encounter with the academic establishment.

——. "A Second Look at English Poetry in Montreal." CVII, 4:4 (Spring 1980), 24-27.

Cites interpretational "weaknesses" in Ken Norris' "Montreal English Poetry in the Seventies" (CVII, 3:3) in its "survivalist" sense of Montreal anglophone poetry and a "garrison" mentality centred upon movements defined through easy categorization. O'Rourke qualifies Norris' judgments on the Véhicule poets in the direction of what he feels is objectivity.

"PCR Interview with Henry Beissel." Poetry Canada Review, 2:1 (Fall 1980), 6.

"PCR Interview with Kateri Lanthier." Poetry Canada Review, 1:3 (Spring 1980),6.

"PCR Interview with Margaret Atwood." Poetry Canada Review, 1:4 (1980), 8,10.

"PCR Interview with Michael OndaatJe." Poetry Canada Review, 2:2 (Winter 1980/81), 6.

"PCR Interview with Patrick Lane." Poetry Canada Review, 1:2 (Winter 1979/80), 6.

Pearce, Jon. "Desire and Death: Susan Musgrave." [Interview] Malahat Review, no. 53 (January 1980), 9-25.

Musgrave discusses the evolution of her career in terms of influences and personal development, expanding upon elemental and dream images to consider specifically the children's book Gullband (1974) and her love poetry.

——. "Enacting a Meditation: Dennis Lee." Journal of Canadian Poetry, 2:1 (Winter 1979), 5-23.

Adopting the format of an interview, Pearce hands the structure to Lee, who builds a self-interview. Focusing on "The Death of Harold Ladoo," Lee demonstrates his conception of poetry as expression and extension of life through the elegy form.

Quigley, E. "Particular Poetry." Rune, 6 (Spring 1980), 30-[53].

Through examination of bp Nichol's martyrology, Quigley defines "particular poetry" as an embodiment of scientific and technological "breakthroughs" — quantum physics leading to a sense of informational fragmentation, in which words are analagous to atoms (i.e., partic-ular) colliding in the flux of a "grammatical field" of "mutable word syntax" and empty space, the reader "activating" the poem through reading.

Quigley, Ellen. "Tish: Bowering's Infield Position." Studies in Canadian Literature, 5:1 (Spring 1980), 23-46.

Through the analogy developed in George Bowering's Baseball (1967), Quigley explores the theory and practice of the Tish movement. In its graphic dimensions and play of "sound particles," Baseball offers a textual enactment of Tish principles, with energies transferred from writer to reader galvanizing form and content in the "personal infield" of the poem.

Senkpiel, Aron. "Poet George McWhirter's Odyssey Leads Inevitably Back to Lotusland's Fertile Shores." [Interview] Books in Canada, 9:7 (August/September 1980), 38-40.

Solecki, Sam. "Point Blank: Narrative in Michael Ondaatje's the man with seven toes." Canadian Poetry, no. 6 (Spring/Summer 1980), 14-24.

A "reconsideration" of Ondaatje's first book-length work (1969), in which the sequence of poems is examined as a movement toward the poet's subsequent longer forms in its participatory nature and the use of myth, legend and reality.

Thomas, Peter. Robert Kroetsch. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, [1980]. (Studies in Canadian Literature, 13) 139 pp.

Thornton, Russell. "A Message for Supermen; An Interview with Irving Layton." Athanor, 1:1 (November 1979), 5-10.

Varma, Prem. "An Introduction and Index to Mountain (1962-1963)." Journal of Canadian Poetry, 2:1 (Winter 1979), 76-97.

In the introduction, Varma defines the importance of David McFadden's Mountain as forum and collector of young poets of the early 1960's, rather than a journal of stylistic innovation or manifesto.

Wade, Jennifer. "Canadian Poetry: What Happened in the Seventies?" Poetry Canada Review, 2:2 (Winter 1980/81), 5.

Wade sees the seventies as characterized by a narrowing rather than expanding vision in Canadian poetry, as internalization and preoccupation with private experience produce a poetry "turning inward upon itself."

Yarrow, Susan. "A Marilyn Bowering Interview." Waves, 8:2 (Winter 1980), 43-50.

GENERAL STUDIES

Bentley, D.M.R. "A New Dimension: Notes on the Ecology of Canadian Poetry." Canadian Poetry, no. 7 (Fall/Winter 1980), 1-20.

Bentley proposes, and significantly applies to Lampman, Birney, Howe and others, an ecological model for the discussion of Canadian poetry. Seeing the interpenetrating relationship between (borrowed) form and (native) content as historically central, Bentley explores their cross-fertilizing influences in poetry of the baselandscape, where the imposition of fixed forms becomes thematic expression of acculturation, and of the hinterlandscape, reflected in more open forms.

Birney, Earle. Spreading Time: Remarks on Canadian Writing and Writers, Book I: 1904-1949. Montreal: Véhicule Press, [1980]. 163 pp.

Reminiscences and literary memoirs, as well as a collection of Birney's reviews, editorials, journal articles and radio broadcasts, 1926-1949. Spreading Time has been excerpted in Books in Canada, Canadian Forum, Globe & Mail, Quill & Quire, and West Coast Review.

Cooley, Dennis, ed. RePlacing. Downsview: ECW Press, 1980.323 pp.

A collection of essays, interviews, and reviews devoted to Canada's Prairie poetry. Topics include popular verse, regionalism and criticism, with specific essays on individual poets (Barbour, Brewster, Friesen, Kroetsch, Mandel, McKinnon, Newlove, Suknaski, and Watson). Also published as the Prairie Poetry Issue of Essays on Canadian Writing, nos. 18/19 (Summer/Fall 1980).

Informal reminiscences about Eggleston's friendships with Roberts, Carman, Knister, D.C. Scott, and other literary figures.

Gustafson, Ralph. "New World Northern: Of Poetry and Identity." University of Toronto Quarterly, 50:1 (Fall 1980),    [53] - 65.

A discussion of the poetic process and poetic meaning ("the poet grasps his symbols and through them reconciles the separated areas of fact and value"), expanding into a consideration of Canadian identity as manifested in the nation's poetry. Gustafson refutes the concept of a "poetry of terror" and anxiety, suggesting that Canada's expanse and grandeur are both stimulus to and reflection of her art.

Heath, Jeffrey M., ed. Profiles in Canadian Literature, 1-2. Toronto and Charlottetown: Dundurn Press Limited, 1980. 112 pp.; 108 pp.

Summational essays with chronology, selected bibliography and critical statements by and about the following poets in vol. 1: Lampman, D.C. Scott, Smith, Birney, Klein; vol. 2: Purdy, Avison, Atwood, Nowlan, and Kroetsch.

Lecker, Robert, and Jack David, eds. The Annotated Bibliography of Canada's Major Authors, vol. 2. [Downsview]: ECW Press, [1980]. 277 pp.

Comprises comprehensive annotated bibliographies of primary and secondary materials through December 31, 1978, for Atwood, Cohen, Lampman, Pratt, and Purdy.

Moisan, Clement. Poésie des frontières; étude comparée des poésies canadienne et québécoise. [Cité de LaSalle]: HMH, [1979]. (Collection Constantes, 38), 346 pp.

Richardson, Keith. "Anthologies of Canadian Poetry." Journal of Canadian Poetry,2:1 (Winter 1979), 24-55.

Discusses five anthologies, published 1916-1954, as reflections of the period between World War I and the end of World War II.

Woodcock, George. The World of Canadian Writing: Critiques & Recollections. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre; Seattle: University of Washington Press, [1980]. 306 pp.

Retrospective collection of essays (1971-1979), including articles on the poetry of Atwood, Birney, Klein, Lowther, Purdy, recent trends, etc.