The Year's Work in Canadian Poetry Studies:  1985

       The annotated checklists of the Year's Work in Canadian Poetry Studies for 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983 and 1984 can be found in nos. 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16 of Canadian Poetry.

Bentley, D.M.R.  "'From the Hollow, Blasted Pine':  Centrifugal
        Tendencies in Adam Kidd's The Huron Chief." Open Letter,
       ser. 6, nos. 2/3 (Summer/Fall 1985), 233-256.

Arguing that Kidd and his poem exhibit a centrifugal rebellion against early Canadian high culture, Bentley suggests that The Huron Chief (1830) anticipates post-modern tendencies in various ways such as its polyphony, its rough style and its respect for reality and for the Native peoples. Language and form frequently betray Kidd in his rebellion against the centres of Canada's colonial culture.

Davies, Gwendolyn.  "'Good Taste and Sound Sense':  The
        Nova-Scotia Magazine (1789-92)."   Essays on Canadian
        Writing, no. 31 (Summer 1985), 5-22.

Goldsmith, Oliver.  Autobiography of Oliver Goldsmith:  A
        Chapter in Canada's Literary History, 2nd ed.  Edited by
        Wilfrid E. Myatt; with foreword by Phyllis R. Blakely.
         Hantsport, N.S.:  Lancelot Press, 1985.  174 pp.

MacDonald, Mary Lu.  "Three Early Canadian Poets."  Canadian
        Poetry, no. 17 (Fall/Winter 1985), 79-91.

Vincent, Thomas B.  "Eighteenth-Century Maritime Verse."  Essays
        on Canadian Writing, no. 31 (Summer 1985), 23-34.

Arnold, Richard.  "'Thoughts Grow Keen and Clear':  A Look at
        Lampman's Revisions."   Studies in Canadian Literature,
        10:1/2 (1985), 170-176.

Bentley, D.M.R.  "Alchemical Transmutation in Duncan Campbell
        Scott's 'At Gull Lake:  August, 1810' and Some Contingent
        Speculations."  Studies in Canadian Literature, 10:1/2 (1985),
        1-23.

__________.   "Threefold in Wonder:  Bliss Carman's Sappho:
        One Hundred Lyrics." Canadian Poetry, no. 17
        (Fall/Winter 1985), 29-58.

Seeking to demonstrate that Sappho is more coherent and metaphysical than previously recognized, Bentley reveals the presence in the sequence of a covert plot involving Sappho's relationships with male and female lovers and with the Eleusinian Mysteries. Carman's Unitrinian philosophy and conception of love are shown to be behind a volume that occupies an influential position between Victorianism and Modernism.

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

Burns, Robert Alan.  "Isabella Valancy Crawford's Poetic
        Technique."  Studies in Canadian Literature, 10:1/2 (1985),
        53-80.

Tracing Crawford's poetry chronologically, Burns seeks to demon strate that it results from learned and perfected craftsmanship rather than naïve native genius.  Citation of early English and French lyric models, the North American rural dialect conventions, blank verse and dramatic monologue forms suggest that Crawford's "modernist" tone is the product of attention to tradition, especially that of Donne and the metaphysicals.

Doyle, James.  "Archibald Lampman and Hamlin Garland."
         Canadian Poetry, no. 16 (Spring/Summer 1985), 38-46.

__________.   "The Confederation Poets and American Publishers."
        Canadian Poetry, no. 17 (Fall/Winter 1985), 59-67.

Large, F. Ross.  "John Frederic Herbin:  A Reconsideration."
        Canadian Poetry, no. 16 (Spring/Summer 1985), 21-37.

Leisner, August.  "Charles G.D. Roberts:  Mystical Poet."
        Edited by Laurel Boone with Dorothy Roberts Leisner.
        Studies in Canadian Literature, 9:2 (1984), 267-295.

In this edited version of a mid-30s study, Leisner traces Roberts' "mystical" elements from the earliest teenage poetry to the final image of "The Iceberg" governed by fate in a deterministic universe. Roberts was, Leisner suggests, a fusion of "impassioned titan and celestial child," finding the passion of his art and life in the energy generated by conflict between desire and fate.  Appended to the essay are letters from Roberts attesting to the validity of its insights and from Pelham Edgar regarding its acceptability as graduate thesis work at the University of Toronto.

McCabe, Kevin.  "Lucy Maud Montgomery:  The Person
         and the Poet." Canadian Children's Literature, no. 38
        (1985), 68-80.

Miller, Muriel. Bliss Carman:  Quest & Revolt. St. John's,
       Nfld.: Jesperson Press, 1985. xv, [xii], 304 pp.

Prescott, John F. In Flanders Fields:  The Story of John
      McCrae. Erin, Ont.:  Boston Mills Press, 1985.   144 pp.

"Robert W(illiam) Service, 1874-1958." In Dennis Poupard
         and James E. Person, Jr., eds., Twentieth-Century Literary
        Criticism, vol. 15.  Detroit:  Gale Research, c1985, 397-414.

Roberts, Charles G.D. The Collected Poems of Sir Charles
         G.D. Roberts: A Critical Edition. Edited by Desmond
         Pacey. Wolfville, N.S.: Wombat Press, c1985. xxxii, 672 pp.

Ross, Malcolm.  "Bliss Carman and the Poetry of Mystery:
        A Defense of the Personal Fallacy."  In Malcolm Ross,
        Fred Cogswell and Marguerite Maillet, The Bicentennial
        Lectures on New Brunswick Literature.  Sackville, N.B.:
        Centre for Canadian Studies, Mount Allison University,
        c1985 (The Winthrop Pickard Bell Lectures in Maritime
        Studies, 3), [9]-31.

Ross chronicles his youthful infatuation with Carman and documents the sustained attraction the poetry still holds for him by drawing attention to the intense transcendentalism of Carman's earlier works. The tension between unfathomable essences of eternal present and acknowledged mortality creates an element of metaphysical mystery largely lost in the more serene "poetry of thought" following Behind the Arras (1895).

Skretkowicz, Victor.  "Where Isabella Valency [sic] Crawford
         Died." Studies in Canadian Literature, 10:1/2 (1985),
        177-182.

Twigg, Alan.  Hubert Evans:  The First Ninety-Three Years.
        Madeira Park, B.C.:  Harbour Publishing, 1985.  154 pp.

Ware, Martin.  "Theodore Goodridge Roberts, Poet:  A
         Neglected Voice."  Essays on Canadian Writing, no. 31
        (Summer 1985), 75-92.

Warkentin, Germaine. "The Problem of Crawford's Style."
      Canadian Literature, no. 107 (Winter 1985), 20-32.

Arnold, Abraham.  "Alienation and Response:  The Multi-
        Heritage of Miriam Waddington." NeWest Review, 10:8
        (April 1985), 17-18.

Waddington's roots in Jewish, Russian and Canadian cultures create range and richness in her works.  Arnold points to education and family background as influences upon the secular/religious dynamics of her Jewishness, which lies at the centre of much of her work and fuses in the Yiddish translations, and the pervasive presence of an imagined Manitoba landscape drawn from her youth in Winnipeg.

Benazon, Michael.  "Leo Kennedy:  Reticent Poet."  Matrix,
         no. 20 (Spring 1985), 55-65.

Cavell, Richard.  "The Nth Adam:  Dante in Klein's The Second
        Scroll." Canadian Literature, no. 106 (Fall 1985), 45-53.

Cavell sees the pilgrim/poet narrator's quest for a new language in Klein's novel as an image of the author's own search for a voice which was both new and reflective of a cultural tradition.  Dante's fusion of respect for antiquity and commitment to the vernacular, his acknow ledgement of a literary patrimony in Virgil and his own Adamic creation through naming, made him a model for Klein's own modern journey as fictionally projected in The Second Scroll.

Galloway, David.  "SCL Interviews Fred Cogswell."  Studies
        in Canadian Literature, 10:1/2 (1985), 208-225.

Giguère, Richard. Exil, révolte et dissidence:  étude comparée
        des poésies québécoise et canadienne (1925-1955).
        Québec:  Les Presses de l'Université Laval, 1984.  (Vie
         des lettres québécoises, 23) xvi, 283 pp.

Gingell, Susan.  "The Newfoundland Context of the Poetry of
         E.J. Pratt." Essays on Canadian Writing, no. 31 (Summer
        1985), 93-105.

Grove, Frederick Philip.  "Frederick Philip Grove's 'The Dirge.'"
         Edited and with an introduction by Terrence Craig.  Canadian
        Poetry, no. 16 (Spring/Summer 1985), 55-73.

Continues Craig's publication of Grove's "Poems" (cf. Canadian Poetry, no. 10, 1982).  Composed following the death of Grove's daughter in July 1927, "The Dirge" poems were printed in selected elements in the Canadian Forum, April 1932, and are here correlated with Grove's initial typescript.

Jenoff, Marvyne.  "Miriam Waddington:  An Afternoon Interview."
        Waves, 14:1/2 (Fall 1985), 4-12.

Klinck, Carl F.  "Henry W. Wells (1895-1978):  Correspondence
        with Carl F. Klinck:  A Memoir." Canadian Poetry, no. 17
        (Fall/Winter 1985), 68-78.

Klinck recalls his relationship with the American critic and translator with whom he collaborated on Edwin J. Pratt: The Man and His Poetry (1947).

Lecker, Robert, Jack David, and Ellen Quigley, eds. Canadian
        Writers and Their Works:  Poetry Series, vol. 5.
        Introduced by George Woodcock.  Toronto:  ECW Press,
        1985.  329, [21] pp.

Levin, Beatrice.  "Elizabeth Smart:  À Tête Tête."  Cross-
       Canada Writers' Quarterly, 7:3/4 (1985), 38-39.

Malus, Avrum, Diane Allard, and Maria van Sundert.  "Frank
         Oliver Call, Eastern Townships Poetry, and the Modernist
        Movement."  Canadian Literature, no. 107 (Winter 1985),
        60-69.

Meyer, Bruce, and Brian O'Riordan.   "Margaret Avison:
        Conversation and Meditation." [Interview] Poetry Canada
        Review, 7:1 (Autumn 1985), 8-9.

Mezei, Kathy.  "A Bridge of Sorts":  The Translation of
       Quebec Literature into English."  Yearbook of English
        Studies, 17 (1985), [201]-226.

Mezei discusses the periodic approach and withdrawal between English- and French-Canadian literature, suggesting particularly that the translations of F.R. Scott, Dudek, Jones, Glassco and some of the Ellipse circle were, in fact, educative in focussing those poets' concerns back onto their own styles, themes and techniques.

Precosky, Don.  "Reassessing Other Canadians." CV II,
        8:4 (February 1985), 25-27.

Precosky's reassessment reveals that the 1946 anthology only occasionally transcends the partisanship of John Sutherland's intro duction.  The First Statement vs. Preview battle is documented, with Precosky viewing Other Canadians as a response to the 1943 Book of Canadian Poetry, in which A.J.M. Smith differentiated the "national" and "cosmopolitan."

Purdy, Al.   "A Note on John Glassco."  Poetry Canada Review,
        7:1 (Autumn 1985), 25.

Purdy associates the sardonic pessimism of Glassco with the agony of A.E. Housman and the doom-saying of Robinson Jeffers, though he finds the Canadian "much more urbane and wry in his tone and conclusions." The article also contains a discussion of the selection process for the 1972 Governor General's Award for poetry to Glassco's Selected Poems.

Redekop, Magdalene.  "Authority and the Margins of Escape in
        Brébeuf and His Brethren."  Open Letter, ser. 6, nos. 2/3
        (Summer/Fall 1985), 45-60.

Placing Pratt's poem in a context of critical pluralism, Redekop seeks to test the validity of various interpretations of it, including her own.  Pratt himself sought to achieve a comic attitude to history in Brébeuf, a fact not unrelated to the World War II context of the poem.

Watt, F.W.   "The Plot Against Smith."  Canadian Literature,
        no. 105 (Summer 1985), 111-130.

Watt attempts to save Smith from himself, discovering "the poet in the poems," a "human presence" often put off by (1) capricious arrange ment within collections, (2) pseudonymous publication, (3) unacknow ledged revision, and (4) the "ways of reading" Smith prescribed.  Masquerade and pastiche also served to distance the poet from his work, though Watt tries to locate Smith through defining his Venus (the erotic strain) and his youthful, Romantic self.  In thrall to Modernism, Smith finally may have "put by all his beautifully crafted masks so that we can see his face."

Whalley, George.  "Birthright to the Sea:  Some Poems of E.J.
        Pratt."  In his Studies in Literature and the Humanities:
        Innocence of Intent.  Selected and introduced by Brian
        Crick and John Ferns.  Kingston; Montreal:  McGill-
        Queen's University Press, 1985, 175-196.

Whalley see Pratt's intimacy with the sea as fundamental not only to the Newfoundland poems but to the "Extravaganzas" such as Brébeuf and His Brethren (1940) and Towards the Last Spike (1952), as the poet "left the salt water and discovered the sea."  The elemental nature of man's relationship with both the sustenance and menace of a surrounding ocean provides a sense of epic largeness which resonates through all Pratt's major work.

Whiteman, Bruce.   "The Beginnings of Modernism (1):  Raymond
        Knister."  Poetry Canada Review, 7:1 (Autumn 1985), 44.

Whiteman states that "Knister's poems comprise one of the first mature bodies of modernist work in Canada," suggesting that close habits of observation developed during a rural childhood led the poet naturally to the focal attention of Imagism.

__________.   "The Beginnings of Modernism (2):  Dorothy
        Livesay."  Poetry Canada Review, 7:2 (Winter 1985-86), 23.

Through examples drawn from Green Pitcher (1928) and Signpost (1932), Whiteman documents Livesay's early Imagist work as a significant stirring of Modernism in Canadian verse.

__________.   "Defining the Tradition."  Poetry Canada
        Review, 6:4 (Summer 1985), 11.

Continuation of Spring 1985 article, in which Whiteman discusses submerged masterpieces such as the 1942 Anthology of Canadian Poetry, edited by Ralph Gustafson, "the first anthology which brought a modernist intelligence to bear on roughly a hundred years of Canadian poetry."

__________.   "W.W.E. Ross:  Imagism, Science, Spiritism."
        Poetry Canada Review, 6:3 (Spring 1985), 9.

Whiteman considers Ross' early interest in modernist poetics a key to his transcendence of the "slush" which dominated the poetry of his period.  His embrace of Imagism seemed to offer a fusion of scientific precision and a surreal vision derived from his fascination with supernaturalism.

CONTEMPORARY

Allen, Elizabeth.  "Interview with Anne Szumigalski."
        Waves, 14: 1/2 (Fall 1985), 54-58.

Benazon, Michael.  "Irving Layton and the Montreal Poets."
        [Excerpts from interview] Matrix, no. 20 (Spring 1985),
        16-20.

Blodgett, E.D.  "After Pierre Berton What?  In Search of a
        Canadian Literature."  Essays on Canadian Writing,
        no. 30 (Winter 1984-85), 60-80.

Though primarily considering prose fiction, Blodgett qualifies the patterns of exploration and spatial definition he finds characteristic of Canadian literature by citing the "anti-discourse" of an often feminine poetic response, as in Webb, Atwood, Hébert and Brossard.  The defining power of articulation, however, is ultimately demonstrated through discussion of the layered multi-textuality of Kroetsch's Seed Catalogue.

Bouraoui, Hédi.  "Liliane Welch:  A New Voice from the
        Maritimes."  Essays on Canadian Writing, no. 31
        (Summer 1985), 240-250.

Drawing from a sense of historical process afforded by her European heritage, Welch discovers in the elemental landscape of her adopted region a reflection of internal terrain which makes her work Faulknerian in its expansion from the local to the universal.  Working often through dramatic monologue, Welch illuminates the paradoxical confinement and liberation reflected in both the topography and culture of New Brunswick.

Brathwaite, Edward Kamau.  "Dionne Brand's Winter Epigrams."
        Canadian Literature, no. 105 (Summer 1985), 18-30.

Through extensive citation, Brathwaite discusses Brand's Winter epigrams & Epigrams to Ernesto Cardenal in defense of Claudia (1983) as a work of formidable political and feminist engagement, suggesting hers is the "voice of the Caribbean woman poet" and that her life in Toronto provides a context of northern social comfort against which third-world issues may be projected.

Bringhurst, Robert.  "Breathing Through the Feet:  An
        Autobiographical Meditation."  Canadian Literature,
        no. 105 (Summer 1985), 7-15.

Bringhurst writes of his rejection of North American social materialism and destructiveness and his preference for life on the margins of such a system.  His poetry, he maintains, is an effort to "salvage and preserve" a sense of the world based on creative interaction with nature and with cultures which have embraced it as their vital source.  One must, he avers, "pay attention."

Cameron, Elspeth.  Irving Layton:  A Portrait.  Toronto:
        Stoddart, 1985.  [xiii], 518 pp.

Cole, Christina.  "Daphne Marlatt as Penelope, Weaver of
        Words:  A Feminist Reading of Steveston."  Open Letter,
        ser. 6, no. 1 (Spring 1985), [5]-19.

Taking as her key the image of spinning/weaving as a figure for the creative imagination, Cole sees both the incantatory styles and labyrinthine form of Steveston as a weaving of language.  Marlatt thus suggests Penelope and Ariadne and ultimately embodies Arachne in spinning the verbal web from out of herself (as a route to roots, self-discovery in the body of language).

Collomb-Bourreau, Colette.  "Ville et poésie dans les années
        60."  Études canadiennes/Canadian Studies, no. 19
        (December 1985), 89-104.

Collomb-Bourreau traces the traditional images of urban violence and alienation in the 1960s and the growth of an "underground" of sensibility beneath the impersonal, mechanistic cityscape.  More recently, however, the communal identity and uniqueness of specific Canadian cities is being rediscovered and poetically celebrated.

Couzyn, Jeni.   "The Travelling Life:  An Account of Some
        Pits and Peaks in a Three-Week Poetry Reading Tour
        of Canada." Canadian Literature, no. 105 (Summer
        1985), 47-57.

A sensitive evocation of the poet's juggling of speaker-audience dynamics during a reading tour encompassing a wide range of formats.

Duguay, Raoul.  "Raoul Duguay Interviews bp Nichol (en
        anglais)."  Brick, no. 23 (Winter 1985), 25-31.

Fortier, Mark.  "Interview [with] Marty Gervais." Books
        in Canada, 14:1 (January/February 1985), 40.

Geddes, Gary.  "Old Poetics:  Or, Feeding a New Line."
        Waves, 13:  2/3 (Winter 1985), 5-6.

Geddes introduces a group of his own poems with a short discussion on the "music" of poetry, a pattern and balance of stresses, rhythms and sounds which he illustrates in a line from Layton's "Keine Lazarovitch."

Gibbs, Robert.   "Three Decades and a Bit Under the Elms:
        A Fragmentary Memoir." Essays on Canadian Writing,
        no. 31 (Summer 1985), 231-239.

Gibbs chronicles his early exposure to "living" poets and poetry as a student at the University of New Brunswick, acknowledging the importance of the Bliss Carman Poetry Society and Fiddlehead as sustaining influences.  His reminiscence carries him through the shift from English-European models to a more North American-Canadian focus and finally into the creative present.

Godard, Barbard.  "'Body I':  Daphne Marlatt's Feminist
        Poetics." American Review of Canadian Studies, 15:4
        (Winter 1985), 481-496.

Godard discusses Marlatt's attempts to discover a "mother tongue" beneath language's layer of patriarchal discourse.  Key to this discovery are the extended line and open-ended structures, correlative of an extended, expansive self, as feminine inclusive forms replace masculine exclusive ones.  Important also is reasserting the personal maternal bonds, as Marlatt journeys toward the spirit of her own mother in "The Month of the Hungry Ghosts" (1979) and toward England as mother country in How Hug a Stone (1983).

__________.  "'Mon corps est mots':  l'écriture féminine de
         Daphné Marlatt."  Ellipse, nos. 33/34 (1985), 88-100.

Integrates elements of previous entry with stylistic focus keyed to Pound and the Black Mountain poets.

Hancock, Geoff.  "What Now, Montreal?" Matrix, no. 20
        (Spring 1985), 5-15.

Although Montreal, "birthplace of the modern tradition in Canadian poetry" has historically nourished the poetic imagination, Hancock sees the city fragmented into regional, even neighbourhood enclaves, often in competition. Also, political conservatism has dampened the "passion and humour" he sees as characteristic of earlier poetry from Montreal.  Resurgent energy may be coming by way of the city's French poetry community (through continental French theory) and may find sustenance in the Concordia establishment, burgeoning readings, and a small press ferment.

Heinimann, David.  "A Conversation with Christopher
        Dewdney." Public Works (London, Ont.), [1] (1985),
        49-54.

Hillis, Doris.  Voices & Visions:  Interviews with
        Saskatchewan Writers. Moose Jaw, Sask.:
        Coteau Books, c1985. iii, 228 pp.

"Some of these conversations have been published, or will be published, in the following mazagines:   Dandelion, West Coast Review, Descant, NeWest Review, Canadian Author & Bookman, Prairie Fire, Wascana Review and Canadian Theatre Review."  Includes interviews with poets A. Szumigalski, G. Vanderhaeghe, P. Lane, G. Sorestad, L. Crozier, J.V. Hicks, T. Heath, E. Allen and R. Currie.

Jewinski, Ed.  "An Interview with Susan Musgrave."  New
        Quarterly:  New Directions in Canadian Writing, 5:2
        (Summer 1985), 11-23.

Kenyon, Linda.  "A Conversation with Robert Kroetsch."
        New Quarterly:  New Directions in Canadian Writing,
        5:1 (Spring 1985), 9-19.

Kertes, Joseph.  "'Brief Are the Days of Beauty':  The Wisdom
        of Irving Layton's The Gucci Bag." Canadian Literature,
        no. 105 (Summer 1985), 32-42.

Kertes perceives a "sense of finality" in The Gucci Bag's embrace of life's antinomies as part of a whole stretching from innocence through disillusionment to wisdom.  The poems in the collection reflect this range and progression of spirit, from the vituperative to those conceived in joy and wonder.

Lane, M. Travis.  "Troll Turning:  Poetic Voice in the Poetry
        of Kristjana Gunnars."  Canadian Literature, no. 105
        (Summer 1985), 59-68.

Lane defines "trollishness" as the magical, primitive immediacy of the Caliban self and cites this temperament as shaping Gunnars' Settlement Poems, One-Eyed Moon Maps, and Wake-Pick Poems, which derive their lunar and runic frames of reference from the nordic myths of her Icelandic Manitoba heritage.  In "Whale Constellations" (1981), he sees her reaching more broadly toward an inclusiveness which may mark her as a major Canadian poet.

__________.   "An Unimpoverished Style:  The Poetry of George
        Elliott Clarke." Canadian Poetry, no. 16 (Spring/Summer
        1985), 47-54.

Lane suggests that the modernist focus on spareness can lead to a poetic impoverishment which is here contrasted with Clarke's ability to draw on a full range of European, African and North American cultural resources to create the richness of texture, colour and rhyme found in "The Emissaries," from Saltwater Spirituals and Deeper Blues (1983).

Lauter, Estella.  "Margaret Atwood:  Remythologizing Circe."
        In her Women as Mythmakers:  Poetry and Visual Art by
        Twentieth-Century Women. Bloomington: Indiana
        University Press, c1984, 62-78.

This chapter discusses the transformation of an image of seduction into one of insight as Atwood recasts Odysseus' stay on her island from Circe's point of view in You Are Happy. The masculine pattern of the quest is undercut through substitution of the open-ended myth of the goddess herself, in effect cancelling the primacy of the hero as stereotype for the creative imagination.

Layton, Irving. Waiting for the Messiah:  A Memoir.  With
        David O'Rourke.  Toronto:  McClelland and Stewart,
        c1985. 264 pp.

Reflections upon Layton's early years 1912-1946.

Lecker, Robert.   "Of Parasites and Governors:  Christopher
        Dewdney's Poetry."  Journal of Canadian Studies, 20:1
        (Spring 1985), 136-152.

Lecker explores Dewdney's images of the Governor (anti-poetic, limiting and mechanistic) and the Parasite (transcendent and creative) as universal opposites. Only in attainment of "remote control," static moments of liberation from time, concept and structure, can memory yield the creative insight into eternal form which takes shape in a "halo" of luminous language. The tornado of "Into the Maelstrom" finds vortex becoming locus as the poet is suspended out of time in the clarity of the visionary moment.

__________, Jack David, and Ellen Quigley, eds. Canadian
        Writers and Their Works:  Poetry Series, vol. 9.
        Introduced by George Woodcock.  Toronto:   ECW
        Press, 1985. 288 pp.

Critical essays on the form, context and development of Atwood (J. Mallinson), D.G. Jones (E.D. Blodgett), Lane (G. Woodcock), Lee (T.G. Middlebro') and MacEwen (J. Bartley).

Leckie, Barbara, and Peter O'Brien.  "An Interview with
        Margaret Atwood." Rubicon, no. 6 (Winter 1985-86),
        111-129.

"Marilyn R(uthe) Bowering, 1949- ."   In Jean C. Stine and
        Daniel G. Marowski, eds., Contemporary Literary
        Criticism, vol. 32. Detroit:  Gale Research, c1985, 46-48.

Brief commentary and reviews on Bowering published 1977-83.

McCaffery, Steve. "Peras:  An Extract from a Page."  Open
        Letter, ser. 6, no. 1 (Spring 1985), [47]-61.

An extended meditation on the page as a "desiring mechanism in a field of forces: the emptiness and surface which is both possibility and limitation, inscription upon which defines and identifies.

McClure, Andrew, and Susan McMaster.  "The Spoken Voice
        as Musical Instrument:  Performance Poetry Notation."
        Open Letter, ser. 6, no. 1 (Spring 1985), [20]-29.

McClure discusses the development of his system for correlating sound with symbol in "scoring" performance poetry for pitch, time, dynamics, articulation, phrasing, timbre and duration.

Meadwell, Kenneth W.  "Langue et parole dans l'oeuvre
        poétique d'Alexandre Amprimoz." Canadian Literature,
        no. 106 (Fall 1985), 32-39.

Meadwell sees an ultimate unity in the self-referential nature of Amprimoz's French and English poetry, generally assumed to differ in focus and approach. The more speculative, abstract and ideational French poems may complement the directly personal and experiential English works as "langue" and "parole" fuse collective and individual discourse in meaningful communication.

Merrett, Robert James.  "Violence, Ecology and Political
        Sense in Recent Canadian Poetry." Queen's Quarterly,
        92:3 (Autumn 1985), 509-528.

Merrett discusses recent volumes by twelve poets in terms of their approaches to the essentially public issues of contemporary violence and its interplay with the natural world.  He sees the political dimensions of such issues as necessary in both capturing an audience and validating the work itself as culturally relevant. Poets discussed:  Mayne, Gustafson, Gatenby, Fawcett, Zieroth, Suknaski, Cooley, Stephen, Kelly, Ursell, Mackinnon, Welch.

Meyer, Bruce.   "Al Purdy in Ameliasburgh:  An Archaeologist
        in Search of the Present." Cross-Canada Writers' Quarterly,
        7:1 (1985), 8-9.

Chronicles the author's visit with Purdy at his home, stressing the sensitivity to physical and cultural landscape which makes eastern Ontario the "birthplace and the quality of mind" in Purdy's works.

Monk, Patricia.   "'Words/rich enough to plant':  Maritimes
        Poetry in the Seventies." Essays on Canadian Writing,
        no. 31 (Summer 1985), 220-230.

Monk expands upon Gibbs and Cockburn's Ninety Seasons:  Modern Poems From the Maritimes (1974) with discussion of several groups of younger poets emerging from the Nowlan-Acorn-Cogswell regional sensibility.  The article defines local identity as deriving from a conscious affiliation with the Maritimes which becomes a governing aspect of the poets' work.

Mukherjee, Arun P.  "The Poetry of Michael Ondaatje and Cyril
        Dabydeen:  Two Responses to Otherness." Journal of
        Commonwealth Literature, 20:1 (1985), [49]-67.

Ondaatje's "universalist" transcendence of his ethno-cultural background makes his work abstract and insular in its artistic self-reflexiveness, Mukherjee maintains.  Such "poetry of the unmediated present" is contrasted to Dabydeen's engagement with his "otherness" in the Canadian cultural landscape and his commitment to the immediacy of historical foundations in his Guyanese origins.

Munton, Ann.   "Return, Toronto to the Tantramar:  Regional
        Poetics, the Long Poem, and Douglas Lochhead."  Essays
        on Canadian Writing, no. 31 (Summer 1985), 251-261.

Munton sees Lochhead's discovery of a form which can "take the measure of the landscape" as his rather traditional regionalism (and "dislocation" in the Toronto poems) in Collected Poems:  The Full Furnace (1975) yields to an association of poet and environment (through which landscape becomes soulscape in the journey into self) in High Marsh Road (1980).

Nichol, bp.   "The 'Pata of Letter Feet, or, The English Written
        Character as a Medium for Poetry." Open Letter, ser. 6,
        no. 1 (Spring 1986), [79]-95.

Through the 'pataphysic concepts of Alfred Jarry, Nichol calls attention to the act and substance of poetic notation — "instructing the eye on the movement of the tongue for the pleasure of the ear . . . envisioning the speech in order to speak the vision."   This calls for an awareness of the medium, the surface of the page, and the integrity of inscription, as "significance" = "sign-if-i-can-see/say."

O'Brien, Peter.  "An Interview with Christopher Dewdney."
        Rubicon, no. 5 (Summer 1985), 89-117.

O'Rourke, David.  "Leonard Cohen:  On the Carpet." Poetry
        Canada Review, 7:2 (Winter 1985-86), 26.

Acknowledging that Cohen articulated the feelings of a generation in his early writings, O'Rourke feels "the cry of anguish became a whine" as "the rest of us grew up."  The poems themselves, while often emotionally potent, seem lacking in intellectual depth and substance.

Purdy, Al.   "The Iron Road." Poetry Canada Review, 6:4
        (Summer 1985), 24-26.

A reminiscence of "riding the rails" west to Vancouver in 1936, at the age of seventeen, in the depth of the Depression.

Rosenblatt, Joe. Escape From the Glue Factory:  A Memoir
        of a Paranormal Toronto Childhood in the Late Forties.
        Toronto:  Exile Editions, 1985. x, 112 pp.

Excerpts from this autobiography were previously published in Books in Canada (November 1985) and Poetry Canada Review (Summer 1985).

Smith, Patricia Keeney.  "WQ Interview with Peter Such."
        Cross-Canada Writers' Quarterly, 7:2 (1985), 5-6, 26-27.

Solecki, Sam, ed.   Spider Blues:  Essays on Michael Ondaatje.
        Montreal:  Véhicule Press, 1985. 369 pp.

Stanzel, Franz K.   "Texts Recycled:  'Found' Poems Found in
        Canada."  In Robert Kroetsch and Reingard M. Nischik,
        eds., Gaining Ground:  European Critics on Canadian
        Literature.  Edmonton:  NeWest Press, c1985 (Western
        Canadian Literary Documents Series, 6), [91]-106.

Stanzel posits a definition of the "found poem" based on the provision of a new poetic frame and format, disruption of syntax and structural closure which force the reader to redefine and extend the "semantic blank" toward meaning. Mandel's "News Item" and "First Political Speech" are cited as examples, as is what J.R. Colombo calls the "redeemed prose" of his Mackenzie Poems, The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire and Great Wall of China. The discussion concludes with the refined collage of Kroetsch's Seed Catalogue.

Sward, Robert.  "Al Purdy, a Canadian Unique-ty:  WQ
        Interview." Cross-Canada Writers' Quarterly, 7:1
        (1985), 3-5, 30-31.

Van Wart, Alice.  "The Evolution of Form in Michael Ondaatje's
        The Collected Works of Billy the Kid and Coming Through
        Slaughter."  Canadian Poetry, no. 17 (Fall/Winter 1985), 1-28.

Arguing that Ondaatje's artistic development reveals an increasing reliance on a "dramatic mode and . . . a poetic form," Van Wart proceeds to discuss the two works in terms of their enactment on the page of aspects of the worlds that they depict, most notably the dualisms and tensions of their protagonists.  Both the volumes discussed contain "self-reflexive" structures that communicate through "formal patterns," and through their combination of the narrative and the poetic.

Wiens, Erwin.   "From Apocalypse to Black Mountain:  The
        Contexts of Layton's Early Criticism."   Canadian Poetry,
        no. 16 (Spring/Summer 1985), 1-20.

Wiens documents Layton's poetics in the postwar decade by drawing from his First Statement essay, "Politics and Poetry" (1943), as it articulated the ''Apocalyptic" stance against the modernism of Eliot, Auden and Spender advanced in Preview, then moving to the Contact-Black Mountain "Field" theories Layton used to combat the "Movement"-derived genteel formalism of Toronto mythopoeicists in the 1950s.

__________.   "The Horses of Realism:  The Layton-Pacey
        Correspondence." Studies in Canadian Literature, 10:1/2
        (1985), 183-207.

An examination of the exchange of some 800 pieces over the course of two decades' vigorous debate of the period's literary issues.  Attracted by a commitment to social realism and the engagement of poetry with its times, the poet and critic argued the relative values of their respective crafts, shared an enthusiasm for Yeats, and cemented a sustained and sustaining friendship (which could at times be critical — Layton of Pacey's academism, Pacey of Layton's capitulation to celebrity).

GENERAL STUDIES

Amirault, Peggy.  "Pottersfield:  A Fertile One-Man Operation."
        Quill & Quire, 51:6 (June 1985), 31.

A brief history of Nova Scotia's Pottersfield Press, as well as publisher Lesley Choyce's "Dial-a-Poet" and "poetry video" projects.

Banting, Pamela.   "A Report on 'Long-liners:  A Conference
        on the Canadian Long Poem,' York University, Downsview,
        Ontario, May 29 to June 1, 1984." Prairie Fire, 6:2
        (Spring 1985), 61-64.

Banting offers her impressions of the 1984 Conference at York University, briefly summarizing the major presentations and courses of discussion.

Barratt, Harold.   "Writing in Cape Breton:  A Critical Introduction."
        Essays on Canadian Writing, no. 31 (Summer 1985), 175-191.

Barratt suggests a "nationalism" in recent Cape Breton literature, embodying an "elemental identity" in a physical and social sense of place.  Among novelists, memoirists and short story writers, he discusses Joseph MacLeod's collection of poetry, Cleaning the Bones (1977).

Bowering, George. Craft Slices.  [Ottawa]:  Oberon Press,
        c1985.  152 pp.  A collection of sketches, commentary
        and observations.

Dales, Kim.   "The Art of Rebellion:  Batoche and the Lyric
        Poem." Prairie Fire, 6:4 (Autumn/Winter 1985), 6-15.

Originally written as the introduction to No Feather, No Ink (1985), this article suggests both diversity and continuity in poems about the 1885 Rebellion.  Incidents have been romanticised and recast to fit changing cultural concerns, Dales states, resting on central miscon ceptions of the destruction of Batoche and of Riel's heroic stature as political leader and poet.

Davey, Frank, and Ann Munton, eds.  Long-liners Conference
        Issue. Open Letter, ser. 6, nos. 2/3 (Summer/Fall 1985).
        335 pp.

Proceedings of the Long-liners Conference on the Canadian Long Poem, York University, Toronto, May 29-June 1, 1984.  Participants include:  E. Mandel, F. Davey, S. Scobie, M. Redekop, R. Miki, A. Munton, L. Dudek, J. Reaney, D. Livesay, G. Bowering, M.T. Lane, bp Nichol, G. Geddes, D. Lee, F. Wah, C. Bernstein, D.M.R Bentley, R. Brown, S. Kamboureli and B. Godard.

Daymond, Douglas M., and Leslie G. Monkman, eds.  Towards
        a Canadian Literature:  Essays, Editorials and Manifestos.
       Ottawa: Tecumseh Press, 1984. viii, 303; 600 pp.

An omnibus/anthology of Canadian concern with the definition and establishment of a national literature.  Volume 1:  Colonial Beginnings, 1752-1867; The New Dominion, 1867-1914; Modern Transitions, 1914-1940.  Volume 2:  Consolidation and Debate, 1940-1959; Nationalism and After, 1959-1983.

De Leon, Lisa. Writers of Newfoundland and Labrador:
        Twentieth Century. St. John's, Nfld.:   Jesperson Press,
        1985.  380 pp.

A general introduction to prominent Newfoundland and Labrador authors with brief commentary and selected bibliographies.  Poets include:  E.J. Pratt, G. Cooper, R.A. Parsons, H.L. Pottle, A. Scammell, L. Margaret, D.G. Pitt, P. Janes, H. Horwood, P. O'Neill, G. Rubia, H. Porter, E. Watts, A. Pittman, T. Dawe, K. Major, T. Moore and D. Walsh.

Fee, Margery, ed. Canadian Poetry in Selected English-
        Language An thologies:  An Index and Guide.  Halifax:
        [Dalhousie University Libraries], 1985.  (Dalhousie
        University Libraries and Dalhousie University School
        of Library Service Occasional Paper, 36) [iii], 257 pp.

Provides author, title and first-line indexes to 44 anthologies published 1947-1983.

Fetherling, Doug. The Blue Notebook:  Reports on Canadian
         Culture. Oakville:  Mosaic Press, c1985.  161 pp.

A collection of reviews spanning the period 1972-1984, including material on Dudek, Lee, Nowlan, Gustafson, Newlove, Livesay, Layton, Purdy, Musgrave, Rosenblatt, Birney, Souster and more general articles.

Fowler, Adrian.   "The Literature of Newfoundland:  A
        Roundabout Return to Elemental Matters." Essays on
        Canadian Writing, no. 31 (Summer 1985), 118-141.

Taking his subtitle from Tom Dawe's "Peggy" (1981), Fowler examines the literary sensibility as a bridge to the past through a strong sense of place in the works of novelists Margaret Duley and Harold Horwood, commentators Ted Russell and Ray Guy, and poets Al Pittman and Tom Dawe.

Goldie, Terry.   "The Necessity of Nobility:  Indigenous
        Peoples in Canadian and Australian Literature." Journal
        of Commonwealth Literature, 20:1 (1985), [131]-147.

Drawing his examples from early Canadian verse drama, Goldie suggests that national self-definition encouraged portrayal of the Indian as stately and honourable, while Australian lost-world themes created an idealized native at the centre of an unknown continent, surrounded and insulated by his degenerate, ignoble descendants.

Harry, Margaret.  "Literature in English by Native Canadians
        (Indians and Inuit)."  Studies in Canadian Literature,
        10:1/2 (1985), 146-153.

Contemporary native writing is largely ignored by the Canadian literary establishment, Harry argues, despite a rich and complex oral tradition.  Even when published, it is often wrenched into non-authentic forms, submerged in stereotype, and misunderstood.

Keith, W.J. Canadian Literature in English. London; New
        York:  Longman, 1985.  (Longman Literature in English
        Series) xi, 287 pp.

Multi-genre approach includes discussion of Canadian poetry in historical and thematic terms.

Lecker, Robert, and Jack David, eds. The Annotated
        Bibliography of Canada's Major Authors, vol. 6.
        Toronto:  ECW Press, 1985. 448 pp.

Comprised of comprehensive annotated bibliographies of primary and secondary materials, through 31 December 1982, for Avison (F. Man sbridge), Newlove (R. Lecker and D. O'Rourke), Ondaatje (J. Brady), Page (J. Orange), Waddington (L. Ricou) and Webb (C. Frey).

Meindl, Dieter, ed. Zur Literatur und Kultur Kanadas:
        eine Erlanger Ringvorlesung.  Erlangen:   Palm & Enke,
        1984.  (Erlanger Studien, 54) xv, 194 pp.

Papers from the Summer 1984 seminar held at the Institut fur Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, in cluding specific presentations on E.J. Pratt ("Das Verhältnis von Evolutionstheorie und Geschichtsverständnis im Dokumentargedicht E.J. Pratts," K. Gross), Atwood ("Ökologische Aspekte der Werke von Margaret Atwood," P. Goetsch) and a discussion of contemporary literary interaction with the U.S.A. ("Kanadas Verhältnis zu den USA im Spiegel seiner Literatur," D. Meindl).

Mullins, S.G.   "Man and Nature in Selected Canadian Poetry
        of the Nineteenth Century."  In R. Cassidy and R. Klingspon,
        eds., Mankind in Nature:  Papers Given at the Second
        Northern Literary Symposium, Nipissing University College
        . . . , October 1985. North Bay, Ont.:  Nipissing University
        College, 1985, [68]-78.

Mullins traces the evolution in the Canadian poets' vision of the landscape, from the immigrant perceiving the threat of a harsh nature and longing for an easier world abandoned, through the transitionary non-adversarial nature of Crawford and Sangster to the Confederation poets' celebration of a transcendental relationship between man and nature.

New, W.H.   "A Piece of the Continent, a Part of the Main:
        Some Comments on B.C. Literature."  BC Studies, no. 67
        (Autumn 1985), 3-28.

New discusses the difficulties of defining a "B.C. Literature," suggesting it is characterized by contesting continental and isolating impulses.  He diagrams an historical shift from English to North American perspectives, reflections of the American frontier myths of both possibility and forbidding natural power, and the celebration of wilderness energy made personal in the figure of Emily Carr.  In time, social and economic development, immigration patterns and urbanization turned the landscape inwards, creating a sense of the resourceful self which reflects the "trickster" patterns of native Indian mythology.

Nichol, bp, and Frank Davey.  "The Book as a Unit of
       Composition."  Open Letter, ser. 6, no. 1 (Spring 1985),
       [39]-46.

Nichol and Davey discuss the shaping procedures involved in either conceiving or collecting poems into books, noting the possibilities as well as the restrictions of open and closed structures, prescriptive models of order and the physical "field" of the book itself.

Noonan, Gerald, ed.  Guide to the Literary Heritage of
        Waterloo and Wellington Counties from 1830 to the
        Mid-2Oth Century:  An Historical Bibliography of
        Authors and Poets. Waterloo:  Wilfrid Laurier
        University, 1985. 152 pp.

An annotated bibliography with indexes of places, titles and genre (72 poets included).

Platnick, Phyllis. Canadian Poetry:  Index to Criticisms
        (1970-1979).  [Ottawa]:   Canadian Library Association,
        c1985. xxviii, 337 pp.

Lists reviews/essays on English- and French-Canadian poets drawn from collections and periodicals published principally in Canada and the United States during the 1970s.

Ricou, Laurie.   "Dumb Talk:  Echoes of the Indigenous Voice
        in the Literature of British Columbia."   BC Studies, no. 65
        (Spring 1985), 34-47.

Ricou sees the "dumb talk" at the boundary of English and native languages as a focal point in the white attempt to explore an Indian heritage.  From Emily Carr's reading of images and patterns in the dream-song of "D'Sonoqua" to Phyllis Webb's "Free Translations" embodying ancient raven myths, BC writers have tried to capture styles, structures, signs and rhythms of native culture in works as varied as Musgrave's songs, Wah's pictogrammatic poetry and bissett's chants.

Thomas, Clara.   "A Celebration for Canadian Literature."
       English Studies in Canada, 11:2 (June 1985), [139]-144.

On the occasion of Canadian Literature's 100th issue (Spring 1984), Thomas pays tribute to the journal's quality and its significance in the Canadian literary landscape.

Wachtel, Eleanor.   "On the Fringe:  The Writers of British
        Columbia's Coast Are Joined Less By a Sense of
        Community Than By the Landscape That Surrounds
        Them." Books in Canada 14:4 (May 1985), 5-10.

A series of profiles attempting to discover a "sense of place" in major West Coast writers, including poets Phyllis Webb, P.K. Page, Robin Skelton and W.D. Valgardson.

Mary Ann Jameson