The Year's Work in Canadian Poetry Studies: 1984

In the following bibliography of criticism on English-Canadian poetry published in 1984, journal articles have been summarized or abstracted according to the requirements imposed by the nature of the material. Full-length studies and interviews have also been included, generally without summational comment.

     The annotated checklists of the Year's Work in Canadian Poetry Studies for 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, and 1983 can be found in Nos. 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14 of Canadian Poetry.

PRE-CONFEDERATION

Sangster, Charles St. Lawrence and the Saguenay, and Other
     Poems. Revised edition. Edited by Frank M. Tierney. Ottawa:
     Tecumseh Press, 1984. 463 pp.

Tierney's "Introduction" places Sangster in the context of his times and of subsequent critical judgment and also delineates major themes of "The St. Lawrence and the Saguenay" and the four sections of miscellaneous poems included in the collection. Revisions, editorial and publishing history are documented, and an extensive set of textual notes comprises nearly half the volume.

CONFEDERATION

[Bentley, D.M.R.]. "Minor Poets of a Superior Order." [Preface]
     Canadian Poetry, no. 14 (Spring/Summer 1984), [v]-[viii].

Suggesting that the presence of Carman, Lampman, D.C. Scott and other poets of the Confederation period constitutes a tradition which has been insufficiently acknowledged, Bentley specifically diagrams Carman's tangents with Stevens, Williams, Pound, Frost, and other "major" Americans and Britons as divergent as Wilde, Swinburne, and P.G. Wodehouse.

_________. "A Well-wrought Clay: Francis Sherman's 'In
     Memorbilia Mortis.' " Essays on Canadian Writing, no. 30
     (Winter 1984-85), 320-338.

Bentley attempts to rescue Sherman from an undeserved obscurity by offering an analysis of his most notable work. Neglected in part because of an extra-Canadian Pre-Raphaelite influence, Sherman achieved a strength and grace of style in this pastoral elegy which mark him as a significant transitional figure in 19th-20th century Canadian poetry.

Beasai, Diane. "Counterfeiting Hindsight." World Literature
     Written in English, 23:2  (Spring 1984), 353-366.

The self-conscious (and often self-deceiving, self-congratulatory) "newness" of Canadian literature often leads to a selective historicity. Bessai takes Frye's assessment of E.J. Pratt as a channelling of perspective which has led to restriction both in critical vocabulary and in appreciation of the imaginative breadth and thematic contours of earlier poetry. The modernist/environmentalist approach, Bessai maintains, is limited and arbitrary, robbing the Canadian literary heritage of much of its historical and artistic vitality — a point she demonstrates through specific attention to the works of Charles G.D. Roberts.

Burns, Robert Alan. "Crawford and Gounod: Ambiguity and Irony
     in Malcolm's Katie." Canadian Poetry, no. 15 (Fall/Winter 1984),
     1-30.

Burns revises conventional assessments of Malcolm's Katie, going beyond the obvious Tennysonian influences to redate the poem in the author's maturity and, building on an extensive analysis, to draw thematic and stylistic comparisons with Gounod's opera Mireille which suggest the French work as a source.

Clever, Glenn, ed. The Sir Charles G.D. Roberts Symposium.
     Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1984. (Reappraisals:
     Canadian Writers, 10) xiv, 249 pp.

Papers presented at a symposium held at the University of Ottawa in April 1983. Contributors include: J.C. Adams, L. Boone, F. Cogswell, T. Ware, D.M.R. Bentley, D. Conway, L. McLeod, R.A. Burns, E. Waterston, W. Owen, T. Whalen, R.D. Mathews, M. Hornyansky, L. R. Early, and E. Jewinski.

De Mille, James. "James De Mille's 'Class Poem 1854.' " Edited
     and introduced by Patricia Monk. Canadian Poetry, no. 15
     (Fall/Winter 1984), 61-75.

Monk provides a precisely dated text of the poem with notes and critical commentary explaining local, historical, personal, and literary allusions and suggesting its importance as an early composition.

Early, L.R. "A Chronology of Lampman's Poems." Canadian Poetry,
     no. 14 (Spring/Summer 1984), 75-87.

In his introduction, Early suggests that a chronological notation may reveal shifting emphases and concerns in Lampman's imaginative development.

Kennerley, Mitchell. "Kinnerley on Carman." Edited and introduced
     by H. Pearson Gundy. Canadian Poetry, no. 14 (Spring/Summer
     1984), 69-74.

Gundy's introduction sets the context of Kennerley's 1932 letter of frank and "unadorned" recollections, focussing on its discussion of Carman's relationship with Mrs. Mary Perry King.

Kilpatrick, R.S. "Scott's 'Night Hymns on Lake Nipigon': 'Matins'
     in the Northern Midnight." Canadian Poetry, no. 14 (Spring/
     Summer 1984), 64-68.

Kilpatrick extends Carolyn Roberts' tracing of "Night Hymns" to the Gregorian Sapphics back through possible Latin sources, reflected in illusion and structure, in the Matin song rising "in the midnight" of pre-dawn blackness to arouse the faithful to their prayers.

MacMillan, Carrie, ed. The Proceedings of the Sir Charles G.D.
     Roberts Symposium, Mount Allison University. Sackville: Centre
     for Canadian Studies, Mount Allison University; Halifax: Nimbus
     Publishing Limited, 1984. (Anchorage Series, 1) 129 pp.

Papers presented at a symposium sponsored by the Centre for Canadian Studies in October 1982. Contributors include: D. Conway, D.M.R. Bentley, D. Jackel, W.J. Keith, G. Adams, J. Gold, J. Moss, J. Doyle, and F. Cogswell.

McLeod, Les. "Canadian Post-Romanticism: The Context of Late
     Nineteenth-Century Canadian Poetry." Canadian Poetry, no. 14
     (Spring/Summer 1984), 1-37.

McLeod revises the conventional Romantic-Victorian-Confederation categorization of late 19th century Canadian poetry in the direction of a "Post-Romanticism" of discontinuity with nature and a "radical inward turning" which discovers the self as separate from the natural environment. Though orthodox in their "Transcendental" theories, these poets' works thwarted rather than endorsed a pathetic fallacy in a destruction of Romantic harmonies. McLeod demonstrates the estrangement of personae from nature in Lampman's "April" and "In November" and points to the natural patterns of confinement and "ambush" in Scott's "Adagio" and "November Pansy." In Canadian poetry, he asserts, the urge for union with nature is ultimately a death wish.

Stephenson, Glennis. "The Bitter-Sweet Rose: The Conception of
     Woman in Roberts' The Book of the Rose." Canadian Poetry, no.
     14 (Spring/Summer 1984), 53-63.

Drawing from seven representative poems, Stephenson offers a collective assessment of Roberts' love poetry in The Book of the Rose (1903), diagramming a siren-mother-goddess identity which makes woman an object of alternating fright, comfort, and fascination and suggesting that she becomes in her ambivalence a symbol of life itself.

Ware, Tracy. "The Integrity of Carman's Low Tide on Grande Pré."
     Canadian Poetry, no. 14 (Spring/Summer 1984), 38-52.

Carman's first collection is viewed as a book, suggesting both unity and development in the progression of the poems. Ware examines the title poem's natural and temporal dimensions, revising previous interpretations and arguing a movement "from memory to meditation" which becomes the controlling structure of the volume as a whole.

MODERN

Banting, Pamela. "Dorothy Livesay's Notations of Love and the Dance
     of the Female Poet in Relation to Language." CV II, 8:3 (September
     1984), 14-18.

The "informing tension between embrace and flight" from the domestic makes the continuity of Livesay's work a commentary on the female writer's role in a patriarchal culture. Passivity is reflected in a "phallologocentric" language which must be transcended and rediscovered through a new set of signs, these focussing in the image of the dance.

Bastein, Friedel H. "'A European Writer in Canada': A Brief Intro-
     duction to the Life and Work of Miriam Waddington." In Konrad
     Gross and Wolfgang Klooss, eds., Voices from Distant Lands:
     Poetry in the Commonwealth. Würzburg: Königshausen und
     Neumann, 1983, 94-97.

A contextual introduction to the poet for foreign readers emphasizing major humanistic themes in Waddington's work and discussing her immigrant heritage in the Russian Jewish communities of Winnipeg, Ottawa, and Montreal, her years at the University of Toronto, and her career as poet and teacher.

Bentley, D.M.R. "A Nightmare Ordered: A.M. Klein's 'Portrait of
     the Poet as Landscape.' " Essays on Canadian Writing, no. 28
     (Spring 1984), 1-45.

Bentley confronts Klein's "crowning achievement" by way of providing a systematic analysis of a poem which transcends the "wasteland" by establishing pattern in an apparently chaotic modern world. Structural and thematic gestures toward order ultimately sustain a vision stressing the continuity of art and the artist, and the design implicit in the act of creation as self-construction, the poet building himself in the context of his times.

Fox, C.J. Wyndham Lewis and E.J. Pratt: A Convergence of
     Strangers. St. John's, Nfld.: Memorial University, [1984].
     (Pratt Lecture 1983) 16 pp.

Fox discusses these exactly contemporary writers in terms of a shared context of Modernism in its candour, spatial preoccupations, sense of the mechanistic and grasp of the nature of media influence. Both aliens from the cultural mainstream, both savoured its artifacts as keys to their own work.

Gustafson, Ralph. A Literary Friendship: The Correspondence
     of Ralph Gustafson and W.W.E. Ross. Edited and with an intro-
    duction by Bruce Whiteman. Toronto: ECW Press, 1984. [120] pp.

Hillis, Doris. "CA&B Profile: Towards the Perfect Understanding."
     Canadian Author & Bookman, 59:2 (Winter 1984), 1-2.

Hillis reports on an extended conversation with John Hicks, acknowledging the influence of sacred and liturgical music in his poetry.

Johnson, James F. "Brébeuf and His Brethren and Towards the
     Last Spike: The Two Halves of Pratt's National Epic." Essays
     on Canadian Writing, no. 29 (Summer 1984), 142-151.

Johnson celebrates the epic impulse and "largeness of conception" in Pratt's major works, suggesting that their historical vision and westward orientation represent a triumph of faith and order, tragic and comic in turn, against a threatening, often chaotic world.

Keitner, Wendy. "Canadian Women Poets and the Syndrome of
     the Female Man: A Note on the Poetry of Audrey Alexandra
     Brown and Anne Wilkinson." Room of One's Own, 8:4 (1984),
     76-81.

In the content of a masculine literary tradition emblematized by Klein's Adamic "Portrait of the Poet as Landscape," Keitner states that Brown's utilization of a male persona and embrace of masculine/feminine stereotypes constitute a "rejection of the female point of view." Although Wilkinson, in "Lens," chooses a female persona, she finally capitulates to masculine primacy in art by seeking "validation as an honorary (female) man."

Kertzer, J.M. "Personality and Authority: A.M. Klein's Self-Portrait."
     Canadian Poetry, no. 15 (Fall/Winter 1984), 31-47.

Kertzer explores Klein's use of tradition, myth, and archetype to locate himself within a Jewish cultural setting he found both defining and subverting of the individual: self. As the personal yields to the collective identity, the authority authenticity of a distinct self are put in conflict with the very faith which should sustain them.

Pitt, David G. E.J. Pratt: The Truant Years, 1882-1927. Toronto;
     Buffalo; London: University of Toronto Press, 1984. xix, 415 pp.

Pollock, Zailig, introd. [A.M. Klein's Montreal Issue] Journal of
     Canadian Studies, 19:2 (Summer 1984). 172 pp.

Collection of essays focussing on Klein's context of place and time with attention to matters Jewish and Québécois. Contributors include: Z. Pollock, W. Walsh, N. Kattan, L. Edel, D.M.R. Bentley, L.L. Ferguson, A. Fuerstenberg, D. Kaufman, G. Tulchinsky, P. Anctil, and M. Horn.

Ricou, Laurie. "The Naive Eye in the Poetry of Dorothy Livesay,
     P.K. Page, and Miriam Waddington." In Konrad Gross and
     Wolfgang Klooss, eds., Voices from Distant Lands: Poetry
     in the Commonwealth. Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann,
     1983, 108-114.

Ricou treats the convention of forbidding Canadian landscape as an opportunity for fresh vision in Livesay, Page, and Waddington, suggesting that a child's perspective of "newness" finds both thematic and stylistic expression in "the intimate excitement of first discovery" in their works.

Spiro, Solomon J. Tapestry for Designs: Judaic Allusions in The
     Second Scroll and in the Collected Poems of A.M. Klein.
     Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1984. ix,
     380 pp.

Sutherland, Fraser. "A.K.A. Earle Birney. [A Portrait of the Poet at
     80.]" Books in Canada, 13:5 (May 1984), 7-10.

_______. John Glassco: An Essay and Bibliography. Downsview,
     Ont.: ECW Press, 1984. 121 pp.

Includes an annotated bibliography of manuscripts, primary and secondary sources published up to Glassco's death in 1981, pp. 47-121.

Watt, F.W. "The Gigantomachy of E.J. Pratt." University of Toronto
     Quarterly, 54:2 (Winter 1984-85), [127]-147.

Watt attempts to define Pratt's poetic magnitude by examining the dimensions of first his Newfoundland Verse poems (1923) in the context of a cosmic and a national history and suggesting that later, more personal works found their origin in familial tensions augmented by religious feeling. Traditional "paths" are explored in their implications, moving toward temporal and spiritual resolutions, as the poet looked about his times to achieve a fusion of historical circumstance and religious mythology.

Whiteman, Bruce. Collected Poems of Raymond Souster: Biblio-
     graphy. [Ottawa]: Oberon Press, c1984. 240 pp.

A descriptive bibliography of Souster's work with secondary sources and reviews.

CONTEMPORARY

Amprimoz, Alexandre L. "Thanatos as the Immigrant: Italo-
     Canadian Poetry Today."  CV II, 8:1 (May 1984), 34-38.

Amprimoz searches for "a contemporary Italo-Canadian poetic discourse," finding it in the stridency of clashing languages as a key to colliding cultures. Len Gasparini's IL Sangue, dedicated/addressed to Pier Giorgio DiCicco, is the operative text, in which images of Italian rurality and vitality are set against the cancerous "iron skyline" of contemporary Canada. These nostalgic visions of a lost world correspond to the cultural death of Italian poets who assimilate themselves into the Canadian mainstream.

[Baxter, Meaghan, Jeff Derksen, and Angela Hryniuk ] "An Inter-
     view with Fred Wah." Writing, no. 9 (Spring 1984), 45-49.

Belyea, Barbara, and Estelle Dansereau, eds. Driving Home: A
     Dialogue Between Writers and Readers. Waterloo: Published
     by Wilfrid Laurier University Press for The Calgary Institute
     for the Humanities, 1984. xiii, 96 pp.

Essays examining contemporary Canadian literary arts, including contributions from E.D. Blodgett, C. Wiseman, D.G. Jones, P. Stevens, and others.

Bertholf, Robert J., ed. [Canadian Poetry Festival Issue] Credences:
      A Journal of Twentieth Century Poetry and Poetics, new ser., 2:
     2-3 (Fall/Winter 1983). 303 pp.

Includes lectures delivered at the Canadian Poetry Festival, State University of New York at Buffalo, 15-21 October 1980 on "Canadian Poetry, Roots & New Directions" (D.G. Jones), "Reaney's Region" (G. Bowering), "Language Writing: From Productive to Libidinal Economy" (S. McCaffery) as well as discussions on "The Roots of Present Writing" and "The State of Canadian Poetry" by Marlatt, Bowering, Wah, Nichol, McCaffery, Atwood, bissett, Ondaatje, Jones, and others.

Billings, Robert. "A Conversation with Roo Borson." Waves, 12:
     2-3 (Winter 1984), 5-16.

Brockwell, Stephen. "An Interview with Peter Van Toorn." Rubicon,
     no. 3 (Summer 1984), 156-176.

Burke, Anne. "Robert Kroetsch: A Man of Contraries." Cross-
     Canada Writers' Quarterly, 6:3 (1984), 7, 30-31.

Integrating Kroetsch's publishing history and guiding impulses, this profile centres primarily upon thematic developments in his novels, stories and criticism, though reference is made to The Ledger, Seed Catalogue, and Field Notes.

Carey, Barbara. "WQ Interview with Bronwen Wallace." Cross-
     Canada Writers' Quarterly, 6:4 (1984), 3-4, 29.

Casey, Jane. "An Interview with Kristjana Gunnars." CV II, 8:3
     (September 1984), 36-39.

Choyce, Lesley. "Alden Nowlan Interview." Pottersfield Portfolio,
     5 (1983-84), 2-3.

Davey, Frank. Margaret Atwood: A Feminist Poetics. Vancouver:
     Talon-books, 1984. (New Canadian Criticism Series) 178 pp.

_______. ed. [Robert Kroetsch Issue] Open Letter, ser. 5, nos. 8-9
     (Sumner/Fall 1984). 207 pp.

Issue devoted to writing by and about Kroetsch, including essays on poetry, fiction, and criticism. Poetic focus centres upon The Ledger (D. McKay), Field Notes (R. Brown; S. Neuman; E.D. Blodgett) and interview with Kroetsch concerning The Sad Phoenician (S. Kamboureli).

Davies, Cory Bieman, and Catherine Ross. "Re-realizing Mother
     Goose: An Interview with Dennis Lee on Jelly Belly." Canadian
     Children's Literature, no. 33 (1984), 6-14.

Demchuk, David. "Holding Two Ropes: An Interview with
     Kristjana Gunnars." Prairie Fire, 5:2-3 (nos. 27-28) (Spring
     1984), 32-37.

Draper, Gary. "Interview [with] David McFadden." Books in
     Canada, 13:8 (October 1984), 29-31.

Enright, Robert. "What's So Big About Space? A Conversation with
     Jim Green." Arts Manitoba, 3:4 (Fall 1984), 54-55.

Estok, Michael. "A Redneck's Dance: Patrick Lane's Quest for
      Order". NeWest Review, 9:7 (March 1984), 11, 19.

Estok discusses Lane's poetic stance as "an outsider" and the consequent immediacy this lends to his work. Essentially an overview of Lane's recent poetry, the article suggests a more subdued voice evolving through the poet's trip to China.

Fetherling, Doug. "Interview [with] Leonard Cohen." Books in
     Canada, 13:7 (August/September 1984), 20-30.

Fulford, Robert. "By Persons Unknown. A New Generation of
     Canadian Poets Has Emerged Whose Accomplishments Greatly
     Exceed Their Reputations." Saturday Night, 99:3 (no. 3648)
     (March 1984), 9, 11.

Fulford calls the attention of Saturday Night readers to major contemporary Canadian poets (Christopher Dewdney, Robert Bringhurst, Pier Giorgio DiCicco, Roo Borson, David Solway, David Donnell, and Libby Scheier) by way of suggesting that a new generation of significant artists has arisen.

Garebian, Keith. "Dewdney's Science." Canadian Forum, 64-740
     (June/July 1984), 32-34.

Garebian discusses Predators of the Adoration (1983) as an exploration of the relationship between science and poetry which goes beyond the mere analogical/referential connections drawn by earlier poets.  Dewdney's work contains codes and inventories which go beyond setting and symbol to fuse scientific and lyrical languages in the poetic imagination.

Harding, R.F. Gillian. "Iconic Mythopoeia in MacEwen's The T.E.
     Lawrence Poems." Studies in Canadian Literature, 9:1 (1984),
     95-107.

Harding offers an iconographical explication of MacEwen's 1982 volume, exploring the relationships between art and consciousness as focussed in images of water, desert, stone, mirage, castle, garden, and camera.  Animals often function as psychic projections, Harding maintains, and the tensions between home and the creation-destruction of war form a pervasive dialectic.

Hillis, Doris. "A Conversation with Anne Szumigalski." Dandelion,
     10:1 (Spring/Summer 1983), 5-17.

_______. "An Interview with Patrick Lane." West Coast Review, 18:
     4 (April 1984), 19-28.

Johnson, Jay. " 'Où en est le coeur de l'homme': la poésie de Gary
     Geddes." Ellipse, no. 32 (1984), 86-95.

Mid-career assessment of Geddes, stressing his work as documentary / narrative historicity and reaching for a context of personal, familial, regional, and national definition.

Knight, Alan R. "The Dilemma of the Public Critic; Or, Does
     George Bowering Have A Way With Words." Studies in
     Canadian Literature, 9:1 (1984), 5-19.

Propounding Frye's and Woodcock's ideas of the "public critic" as an intelligent and responsive man of taste, Knight assesses Bowering's collection of essays as the author's forging of a personal poetic. Bowering's essay on Lionel Kearns draws upon the Black Mountain ideals of movement and flux, but misreadings caused by theoretical adherence, Knight argues, result in restrictive and inadequate analyses.

Layton, Irving. Waiting for the Messiah." Canadian Literature,
     no. 101 (Summer 1984), 7-14.

Layton reminisces on his birth into "a world of fable" and its imaginative influences upon him and on the Jewish-French-Canadian tensions resolved in the near-simultaneous deaths of his own father and that of a particularly hostile neighbour.

Mandel, Charles. "Longspoon Press." NeWest Review, 9:6 (February
      1984), 8-9, 22.

A descriptive history and review of the publications of the Edmonton small press formed in 1980.

Mandel, Eli. "The Post Structural Scene in Contemporary Canadian
     Poetry: A Note." Poetry Canada Review, 5:4 (Summer 1984), 10.

Mandel searches out a theory of influence to account for the volume and diversity of contemporary Canadian poetry and finds it in a "history of resentments" through which each generation of poets rewrote the work of its forebears, the postmodernists now reconstructing literary modernism.

Martin Donald. "Interview [with Irving Layton]." Books in Canada,
     13:3 (March 1984), 26-28.

McCaffery, Steve, et al. "Sound Poetry: A Statement by the Four
     Horsemen: Steve McCaffery, Paul Dutton, bp Nichol, Raphael
     Barreto-Rivera." Poetry Canada Review, 5:3 (Spring 1984), 10.

Describes the group's formation in 1970, its roots and career, and discusses the term "sound poetry."

Meyer, Bruce. "The Saint Inside: Leonard Cohen's Poetry of Hagiology."
     Cross-Canada Writers' Quarterly, 6:2 (1984), 3, 24.

Using the controlling image of a self-chronicling martyr, Meyer traces Cohen's stages of "saintly" evolution from the innocence of Let Us Compare Mythologies through a death and rebirth in Death of a Lady's Man to the "educated innocence" which should follow as the poet re-emerges from a prolonged period of silence.

Miki, Roy. "Prairie Poetics: An Interchange with Eli Mandel and
     Robert Kroetsch." Dandelion, 10:2 (Fall/Winter 1983), 82-92.

Discussion of the correspondence of sensibility between Prairie and West Coast poets, touching upon the influence of the Tish group and the prairies' sense of visual "non-place" which offers a "ground for deconstruction" for the literary consciousness.

Mundwiler, Leslie. Michael Ondaatje: Word, Image, Imagination.
     Vancouver: Talonbooks, 1984. (New Canadian Criticism Series)
     160 pp.

Munton, Ann. "The Structural Horizons of Prairie Poetics: The Long
     Poem, Eli Mandel, Andrew Suknaski, and Robert Kroetsch."
     Dalhousie Review, 63:1 (Spring 1983), [69]-97.

Regional focus keys this article on the search for language appropriate to landscape. Visionary goals escape strict linguistic structures, but all emphasize process as an expression of Western openness of life and a consciousness of inventing a sense of place in basic, elemental forms.

Muscott, Neil. "Interview with Roo Borson." Literary Review
     (Writers' Workshop, University of Western Ontario), [2](1984),
     [55]-58.

Nodelman, Perry. "Cadence and Nonsense: Dennis Lee's Poems
     for Children and for Adults." Canadian Children's Literature,
     no. 33 (1984), 22-31.

Departing from the seeming dismissal of Lee's poetry for children in Tasks of Passion: Dennis Lee at Mid-Career (1982), Nodelman demonstrates the importance of these "absurdist fantasies" and "anarchic inversions" in the larger cadences of his work as a whole. The meditative adult finds a balance in the liberated poet of childhood who choreographs collisions of form and meaning which suggest the limits of both.

O'Brien, Peter. "An Interview with Erin Mouré." Rubicon, no. 3
     (Summer 1984), 24-44.

Powe, B.W. A Climate Charged. Oakville: Mosaic Press, 1984.
     196 pp.

A collection of essays (written 1981-1983) on Canadian writing, including discussions of Layton, Atwood, and Cohen.

_______. "The Endless Confessions of a Lady's Man." Cross-
     Canada Writers' Quarterly, 6:2 (1984), 4-8, 26.

Powe suggests that the confessional element and personal mythos which govern Cohen's work have brought about a focus on the self which has drained private into public personality and led to a solipsistic nihilism. The essay points to possibilities for transcendence in Death of a Lady's Man, seeing some hints in "Stanzas for H[enry]M[oscovitch]," 1983.

Reid, Monty. "Choosing Control: An Interview with Claire Harris."
     Waves, 13:1 (Fall 1984).  36-41.

Rosenberg, Jerome H. Margaret Atwood. Boston: Twayne
     Publishers, 1984. (Twayne's World Authors Series, 740) [xi],
     184 pp.

Scobie, Stephen. bp Nichol: What History Teaches. Vancouver:
     Talonbooks, 1984. (New Canadian Criticism Series) 153 pp.

Smith, Patricia Keeney. "WQ Interview with Robert Kroetsch."
     Cross-Canada Writers' Quarterly, 6:3 (1984), 3-5, 29.

Stubbs, Andrew, and Jeanette Seim. "Anne Marriott: Frontier Poet."
     Canadian Poetry, no. 15 (Fall/Winter 1984), 48-60.

Beginning with an acknowledgment of the documentary quality of the early The Wind Our Enemy, Stubbs and Seim suggest that lyrical elements fuse with narrative structure to enact the imaginative confrontations on metaphorical landscapes of borders, margins, and frontiers which form the substance of Marriott's later work in The Circular Coast.

Thesen, Sharon. "Interview: Barry McKinnon." Capilano Review,
     no. 32 (1984), 20-29.

_______. "Interview: David PhiIlips." Capitano Reuiew, no. 32
      (1984), 56-67.

Thompson, M.A. "Jelly Belly in the Perilous Forest." Canadian
     Children's Literature, no. 33 (1984), 15-21.

A personal response to Dennis Lee's Jelly Belly (1983) which suggests Lee is adopting a direction pandering to the adult/commercial market and disregarding the moral/spiritual obligations toward his youthful audience.

Wade, Barbara. "A Way with Words." [Profile of sean o huigin]
     Books in Canada, 13:10 (December 1984), 6-8.

A discussion of o huigin's efforts to engage the creative imagination of children in the writing and performance of his works.

Wayman, Tom. "Work Poems." Canadian Literature, no. 101
     (Summer 1984), 171-176.

Wayman celebrates recent collections of "work poetry" in light of recent neglect by more "mainstream" national anthologies, such as Atwood's New Oxford Book of Canadian Verse and Newlove's Canadian Poetry: The Modern Era.

[Wayne, Joyce] "Q&Q Interview: Leonard Cohen." Quill & Quire,
     50:5 (May 1984), 4-6.

Woodcock, George. "Don't Ever Ask for the True Story; Or, Second
     Thoughts on Autobiography." Essays on Canadian Writing, no. 29
     (Summer 1984), 16-25.

Woodcock ruminates on the "resonant borderlines between documentary and fiction" in autobiographical self-construction using Orwell's recasting of his life as a salient example and casting glances towards himself.

GENERAL STUDIES

Cumming, Peter. "A Fresh Image for the Fiddlehead Tradition." Quill
     & Quire, 50:3 (March 1984), 56-57.

Chronicles the history and directions under a succession of editors from 1945 to the present, including its branching into Fiddlehead Poetry Books and the new Goose Lane Editions.

Index to Canadian Poetry in English. Compiled and edited by Jane
     McQuarrie, Anne Mercer, and Gordon Ripley. Toronto: Reference
     Press, 1984. 367 pp.

Provides title and first-line, author, and subject indexes to Canadian poetry, "indexing about seven thousand poems in fifty-one collections" published 1930-1984,

Meyer, Bruce, and Brian O'Riordan. In Their Words: Interviews
     with Fourteen Canadian Writers. Toronto: House of Anansi Press,
     1984. 211 pp.

Includes interviews with Acorn, Borson, Cohen, Layton, Livesay, MacEwen, Mandel, Purdy, Reaney, Smart, and Souster.

Mezei, Kathy. "The Scales of Translation: The English-Canadian
     Poet as Literal Translator." University of Ottawa Quarterly,
     54:2 (April/June, 1984), [63]-84.

Through examples from Lapointe, Hébert, Garneau and others, Mezei explores the range from literal to free, interpretive translation in French-English Canadian poetry and the inherent duality of obligations pressed upon the translator, finding her models for "effective communion" in Glassco, F.R. Scott, D.G. Jones, and the Ellipse circle.

Moss, John. "Landscape, Untitled." Essays on Canadian Writing,
     no. 29 (Summer 1984), 26-47.

Moss looks at early Canadian poetry in the Adamic context of naming as the first key to possession of experience, suggesting that the discontinuity of an established language with a new landscape fostered first ineptitude and ultimately poetic authenticity.

New, W.H., ed. Canadian Writers in 1984: The 25th Anniversary
     Issue of Canadian Literature. Vancouver: University of British
     Columbia Press, c1984. 376 pp.

Also published as Canadian Literature, no. 100 (Spring 1984) and essentially a forum for the celebration of literature in Canada on the occasion of Canadian Literature's 25th anniversary. Writing creatively, critically, and speculatively, the contributors include over sixty Canadian poets.

Norris, Ken. The Little Magazine in Canada 1925-80: Its Role
     in the Development of Modernism and Post-Modernism in
     Canadian Poetry. Toronto: ECW Press, c1984. 203 pp.

Stouck, David. Major Canadian Authors: A Critical Introduction.
     Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984. xii, 308 pp.

Includes essays on the following poets: Lampman, Pratt, Birney, Klein, Layton, Avison, and Purdy.

Thompson, Lee Briscoe. "Lands Without Ghosts: Canadian and
     Australian Historical Poetry." In Dieter Riemenschneider, ed.,
     The History and Historiography of Commonwealth Literature.
     Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 1983, [165]-175.

The presence of vastness and absence of specific tradition bind Australian and Canadian poetry in Thompson's analysis, as he finds a corresponding proclivity for historical narrative to justify a sense of national formlessness. The search for colonial uniqueness usually ignores native peoples in an evolution toward epic mythology (Brébeuf and Towards the Last Spike in Canada; balladry and convict myths in Australia). Mid-century nationalism in both countries leads to re-historicising through personae, with a contemporary return to the personal mythologies of the poets themselves.

Mary Ann Jameson