Tenth Anniversary Thanks


Canadian Poetry: Studies, Documents, Reviews has now been in existence for ten years. Although its first issue was published in 1977, it actually began about a year earlier in conversations among Michael and Diana Gnarowski and my wife Susan and myself about the need for a journal in the field of Canadian poetry whose approach was scholarly as well as critical and whose focus was on earlier as well as more recent materials. The journal's greatest debts are to Michael Gnarowski, who (as I said when he stepped down from his co-editorship with the Fall/Winter, 1983 issue) lent his support, vision and encouragement to Canadian Poetry during the first six years of its existence, and to Susan Bentley, the journal's Circulation Manager through twenty issues, three changes in subscription rates, and thousands upon thousands of invoices. Without Susan's unfailingly generous gifts of time and support, Canadian Poetry would long ago have ceased to exist. In my, admittedly biased, view all present and future students and scholars of Canadian Poetry owe Susan Bentley a great debt of gratitude.

     Because it could never have survived without financial assistance, Canadian Poetry owes huge (and near-literal) debts to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and to the Ontario Arts Council, and to all those who, in one way or another (as assessors, disbursers of funds, directors of programmes), have expressed confidence in the journal through the support process. In this regard, Canadian Poetry owes an additional debt to the University of Western Ontario Foundation (New York) for funds to promote the journal in the United States and a very special debt to Thomas J. Collins who, in 1977, when he was Chairman of the Department of English at the University of Western Ontario, found as if by magic the money necessary to publish the journal's first issue. I would like to think that Canadian Poetry has been — and will continue to be — worthy of the generous financial support that has been extended to it down the years.

     The English Department at Western has proved to be an ideal home for Canadian Poetry. As well as providing seed money for the journal, the Department has under the chairmanship first of Tom Collins and then of J. F. Woodruff made available numerous facilities, from pencils to secretarial assistance, that have been crucial to the operation of a refereed journal. Unquestionably, the most precious of these facilities has been the time of Isabel Austin, Sue Desmond, and Launa Fuller, all of whom have frequently made space in their already too-busy lives to help with the running of Canadian Poetry. A less tangible gift of Western's English Department to Canadian Poetry and its editor has been a place in that most rare of academic phenomena — a community of scholars. Only a list of all my colleagues and of many graduate students could adequately convey my gratitude for this priceless gift, but I do want specially to thank David Clark, Stan Dragland, Jim Devereux, Brian Diemert, Noreen Golfman, Barry Hoffmaster, Gerald Lynch, Ian MacLaren, Dick Shroyer, Dick Stingle, Brian Trehearne, Archie Young, Tracy Ware and Glen Wickens for many thought-provoking comments and discussions. Joe Zezulka, for several years Advertising Manager for Canadian Poetry, deserves a very special mention: he has been a guide, philosopher and friend from the beginning — a boon companion. Carolyn Quick and Haydn Jensen deserve thanks too for their careful work in proofreading Canadian Poetry.

     I should also like to express gratitude to Canadian Poetry's loyal subscribers and excellent contributors. Looking at the journal's financial books, I see that there are numerous individuals and libraries (alas, far too many to mention), who have subscribed to Canadian Poetry from its inception, generously bearing with us through late issues and increases in rates; to you — and to others who have come to the journal more recently or who have supported it briefly or sporadically — thank you very much. And to the contributors to Canadian Poetry, the people who have entrusted their valuable work to the journal and suffered the long waits of the refereeing process, an even larger 'thank you': whatever lasting contribution the journal has made or will make to the study of Canadian literature resides in your excellent studies, documents and reviews.

      Ernie St. Amour, Canadian Poetry's overseer at the Alger Press, deserves thanks as well. With his colleagues at Alger, Ernie has been a constant source of patience and good advice; his suggestions about printing, format, and costs have added significantly to the appearance and efficiency of the journal, and his sense of humour has done much to enliven the practical side of publishing.

     Finally, Canadian Poetry owes an enormous debt of gratitude to the members of the Editorial Advisory Board, a group of scholars who have given unstintingly of their time, advice and expertise during the past ten years. No contributor to Canadian Poetry can be unaware of the value and importance of the journal's referees; certainly the editor is not, and takes great pleasure in dedicating this issue of Canadian Poetry to the scholarly heart of the journal: the Editorial Advisory Board.

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Since its inception in 1977, Canadian Poetry has published annually in its Spring/Summer issue an annotated bibliography of "The Year's Works in Canadian Poetry." With the recent appearance of the first volume of the Canadian Literature Index: A Guide to Periodicals and Newspapers (ECW Press), "The Year's Work in Canadian Poetry" appears to have become largely redundant, and will cease with the 1986 compilation that closes the present issue of Canadian Poetry. Linda Dowler and Mary Ann Jameson, the compilers of "The Year's Work" over the last ten years, deserve the thanks of everyone working in the field for their painstaking efforts to make easily accessible the materials of our discipline.