Anne Wilkinson, Gwendolyn Macewen, and Phyllis Webb
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Introduction
Introduction Imagine you’re invited to a party. You arrive at the venue, slip past security, and Margaret Atwood is there; so are Michael Ondaatje, Anne Carson, and Dionne Brand. CanLit’s luminaries surround you, and having never brushed elbows with so many prominent writers, you turn paparazzi and start taking photographs in earnest. Point and click—easy to tell who monopolizes the spotlight and who falls back. It’s only once you focus manually, looking for an unconventional angle, that you begin to notice others: a younger, more anonymous crowd pushing at the margins, trying to bypass the guest list. So you raise your camera to include them too, at least those close enough to see clearly. Some of the shots will turn out perfectly—balanced composition, candid expressions that capture the palpable energy of the event. Some won’t. The blur of time will seep in, poor exposure rendering the photographs unusable. You might think I’m describing a Griffin Poetry Prize gala. I am, of course, but this is also the plight of prospective anthologists. Working without the benefit of hindsight, anthologists are responsible for scouting talent in little magazines, hard-to-find books, and critical periodicals. Canonization is a gamble, and time and time again Canadian editors have either gone all in or hedged their bets, offering up both generation defining compilations and remixed versions of established texts. With New Provinces, F.R. Scott curated 13 The Next Wave the first essential anthology of Canadian poetry in 1936. Providing a platform for future icons like E.J. -
The House of Dust
The House of Dust Conrad Aiken The House of Dust Table of Contents The House of Dust.....................................................................................................................................................1 Conrad Aiken.................................................................................................................................................1 NOTE.............................................................................................................................................................1 PART I...........................................................................................................................................................1 PART II........................................................................................................................................................10 PART III......................................................................................................................................................23 PART IV......................................................................................................................................................48 i The House of Dust Conrad Aiken This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online. http://www.blackmask.com • NOTE • PART I. • PART II. • PART III • PART IV. THE HOUSE OF DUST A Symphony To Jessie NOTE . Parts of this poem have been printed in "The North American Review, Others, Poetry, Youth, Coterie, The Yale Review". I am indebted to Lafcadio Hearn for the episode -
“This Is About Me”: a Consideration of Spirituality and Desire in Avison's Poems
164 “This is about me”: A Consideration of Spirituality and Desire in Avison’s Poems by Elizabeth Davey When we reflect on the poetic legacy of Margaret Avison, we think of a giant or, as noted in one obituary, a “‘titan’ in modern Canadian poetry” (Kubacki) incongruously embodied in this shy, diminutive woman. Critics have long admired her often-dense poetry, attracted to her “ironically allu- sive manner” and her “spiritualized syntax” (Merrett 95, Starnino 139). David Jeffrey commends her for her “testimony to a philosophical and spiritual progress” (59). “Margaret Avison has probed and celebrated how we apprehend and envision the natural world,” Robert Merrett notes, “in the process acutely yet tactfully embodying the metaphysical issues that stem from our sensations and imaginations” (95). In the mining of her rich poems, admirers have taken cues from her careful selection of subjects in lyrics of complexity and ambiguity. We expect demanding intellectual and spiritual exercise from engaging in the process. I have wondered, though, at her and our reticence to explore one particular subject, perhaps because of assumptions we make about her status as an unmarried woman and her proclivity to eschew conversation about her private life. Little—but not nothing—is said in Avison’s poems about intimacy and sexuality, reinforc- ing our silence. If we put on different lenses of inquiry, we discover several clues that validate the poet’s experience and occasional expression of desire. To begin, it would be inaccurate to assume that because Avison never married, she did not know passion or experience sexual desire. -
Open Wide a Wilderness Canadian Nature Poems
Open Wide a Wilderness Canadian Nature Poems Edited by NANCY HOLMES Introduction by DON MCKAY Wilfrid Laurier University Press IfwuTH Contents xv PREFACE xvii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I INTRODUCTION: "GREAT FLINT SINGING" BY DON MCKAY THE POEMS 35 Thomas Cary from Abram's Plain 38 Adam Allan A Description of the Great Falls, of the River Saint lohn, in the Province of New Brunswick 40 Ann Cuthbert Knight from A Year in Canada 41 Adam Hood Burwell from Talbot Road 44 Standish O'Grady from The Emigrant 46 Adam Kidd from The Huron Chief 48 William Kirby from The U.E., "Niagara" 50 Alexander McLachlan The Hall of Shadows 53 Charles Sangster from The St. Lawrence and theSaguenay 55 George Martin The lewelled Trees 57 Charles Mair The Last Bison 63. Isabella V.Crawford The Lily Bed 65 Isabella V. Crawford from Malcolm's Katie 67 Ethelwyn Wetherald Unheard Niagaras 68 Ethelwyn Wetherald The Horned Larks in Winter 69 Susan Frances Harrison Rhapsodie (II) [Seranus] 70 Susan Frances Harrison A Canadian Anthology [Seranus] 73 Wilfred Campbell Indian Summer 74 Wilfred Campbell How One Winter Came in the Lake Region 75 Charles G. D. Roberts The Clearing 76 Charles G. D. Roberts from'Ave!" 80 Charles G. D. Roberts The Skater 81 Bliss Carman A Vagabond Song 82 Bliss Carman Vestigia 83 Pauline Johnson The Flight of the Crows (Tekahionwake) 85 Pauline Johnson The Camper (Tekahionwake) 86 Archibald Lampman Freedom 88 Archibald Lampman In November 90 Archibald Lampman To the Ottawa River 91 Archibald Lampman On the Companionship with Nature 92 Frederick G. -
Reframing National Women's History Month: Practicalities and Consequences
Western Michigan University ScholarWorks at WMU Dissertations Graduate College 5-2021 Reframing National Women's History Month: Practicalities and Consequences Skylar Bre’z Western Michigan University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations Part of the Women's History Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Bre’z, Skylar, "Reframing National Women's History Month: Practicalities and Consequences" (2021). Dissertations. 3715. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations/3715 This Dissertation-Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate College at ScholarWorks at WMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Reframing National Women's History Month: Practicalities and Consequences by Skylar Bre’z A dissertation submitted to the Graduate College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy History Western Michigan University May 2021 Doctoral Committee: Edwin A. Martini, Ph.D., Chair Mitch Kachun, Ph.D. Susan Freeman, Ph.D. Reframing Women's History Month: Practicalities and Consequences Skylar Bre’z, Ph.D. Western Michigan University, 2021 This study evaluates the practicalities and consequences of designating one month (March) out of the calendar year for the commemoration of women’s history. In the 1970s and 1980s, national women’s organizations such as the Women’s Action Alliance (WAA) collaborated with the Smithsonian Institute and the Women’s History Program at Sarah Lawrence College to build programs to increase awareness of women’s history. -
ECLECTIC DETACHMENT Aspects of Identity in Canadian Poetry
ECLECTIC DETACHMENT Aspects of Identity in Canadian Poetry A. J. M. Smith I,N THE CLOSING PARAGRAPHS of the Introduction to The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse I made an effort to suggest in a phrase that I hoped might be memorable a peculiar advantage that Canadian poets, when they were successful or admirable, seemed to possess and make use of. This, of course, is a risky thing to do, for what one gains in brevity and point may very well be lost in inconclusiveness or in possibilities of misunderstanding. A thesis needs to be demonstrated as well as stated. In this particular case I think the thesis is implicit in the poems assembled in the last third of the book — and here and there in earlier places too. Nevertheless, I would like to develop more fully a point of view that exigencies of space confined me previously merely to stating. The statement itself is derived from a consideration of the characteristics of Canadian poetry in the last decade. The cosmopolitan flavor of much of the poetry of the fifties in Canada derives from the infusion into the modern world of the archetypal patterns of myth and psychology rather than (as in the past) from Christianity or nationalism. After mentioning the names of James Reaney, Anne Wilkinson, Jay Macpherson, and Margaret Avison—those of the Jewish poets Eli Mandel, Irving Layton, and Leonard Cohen might have been added—I went on to say : The themes that engage these writers are not local or even national; they are cos- mopolitan and, indeed, universal. -
Robert Graves Remembered by Jay Macpherson (1931–2012) Dunstan Ward
‘An Immensely Happy Time’: Robert Graves Remembered by Jay Macpherson (1931–2012) Dunstan Ward Eighteen months before her death in March 2012, the distinguished Canadian poet and scholar Jay Macpherson made a return visit to Mallorca, where in 1952 she had met Robert Graves, who so admired her poems that he published her first book himself under his Seizin Press imprint. It was William Graves who suggested at the end of January 2010 that I should try and persuade Professor Macpherson to come to the Tenth Robert Graves Conference in Palma and Deyá that July. ‘She was in Deyá on and off from the early to the late 1950s,’ he wrote. ‘I’ve never seen a copy of Nineteen Poems. I think only she and Terence Hards were given the honour of a Seizin publication.’ I had once spoken briefly with this almost legendary figure, at the Robert Graves Centenary Conference at Oxford in 1995, when Beryl Graves introduced us. Now I wrote to the University of Toronto inviting her to take part in a poetry reading at the conference in Mallorca. I also said that William and I were wondering if she might be prepared to give an interview, in which she could talk about her relationship with Robert Graves and his work. Jay Macpherson’s email reply came two days later: Monday 8 February 2010 Well, yes, tentatively--that is, I have commitments to a sick friend whom I can’t leave without some difficult arranging; but had been hoping to do just that for at least a bit of this summer. -
MS Coll 00121
MS. MACEWEN, GWENDOLYN COLL. PAPERS, 1955-1988 121 CHRONOLOGY 1941 Born in Toronto, daughter of Elsie Doris Mitchell and Alick James McEwen. 1948 Published first poem in The Canadian Forum 1955-1959 Attended Western Technical High School 1959 Left school to be a writer: wrote plays and dramatic documentaries for CBC radio which are mainly unpublished, and poetry and fiction. 1959-63 Worked in children’s library Issued Saturnalia, poem, broadside, lithograph. 1961 Published privately Selah and The Drunken Clock, both limited to 100 copies and both books (pamphlets) of poetry 1962 Married and separated from Milton Acorn 1963 Published Julian the Magician, a novel, and The Rising Fire, poems 1965 Received CBC New Canadian Writing contest 1966 Published A Breakfast for Barbarians, poems 1969 Published The Shadow-maker, poems, which won the Governor General’s Award 1970? Published Jewelry: a Poem, a broadside 1971 Published King of Egypt, King of Dreams, a novel Married Nikos Tsingos 1972 Operated the Trojan Horse, a coffee house in Toronto with Nikos Tsingos, a Greek singer to whom she was married for six years Published Noman, a collection of short stories (reprinted 1985) 1 MS. MACEWEN, GWENDOLYN COLL. PAPERS, 1955-1988 121 CHRONOLOGY 1973 Published The Armies of the Moon, poems Received A.J.M. Smith Award 1974 Magic Animals, poems (reprinted 1984) 1976 Published The Fire Eaters, poems 1978 Published Mermaids and Ikons; a Greek Summer, travel recollections of Greece 1979 Published The Trojan Women; a play 1980 Published The Man with three Violins, broadside 1981 Published The Chocolate Moose, a children’s book Published The Trojan Women which contains her version of Euripides’ The Trojan Women and her translation of two poems, “Helen” and “Orestes” by Yannis Ritsos 1982 Published The T.E. -
Identity, Gender, and Belonging In
UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN, TRINITY COLLEGE Explorations of “an alien past”: Identity, Gender, and Belonging in the Short Fiction of Mavis Gallant, Alice Munro, and Margaret Atwood A Thesis submitted to the School of English at the University of Dublin, Trinity College, in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Kate Smyth 2019 Declaration I declare that this thesis has not been submitted as an exercise for a degree at this or any other university and it is entirely my own work. I agree to deposit this thesis in the University’s open access institutional repository or allow the library to do so on my behalf, subject to Irish Copyright Legislation and Trinity College Library conditions of use and acknowledgement. ______________________________ Kate Smyth i Table of Contents Summary .......................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... iv List of Abbreviations ..................................................................................................................................... v Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Part I: Mavis Gallant Chapter 1: “At Home” and “Abroad”: Exile in Mavis Gallant’s Canadian and Paris Stories ................ 28 Chapter 2: “Subversive Possibilities”: -
IN the WHALE's BELLY Jay Macpherson's Poetry
IN THE WHALE'S BELLY Jay Macpherson's Poetry Suniti Namjoshi J"A.Y MACPHERSON'S FIRST MAJOR BOOK of poems, The Boat- man, was published in 1957 by Oxford University Press and then republished in 1968 with the addition of sixteen new poems.1 Her second book of poems, Wel- coming Disaster, appeared in 1974. No discussion of modern Canadian poetry is complete without at least a mention of Jay Macpherson's name, but the only article on her poetry that I have come across is the one by James Reaney, "The Third Eye: Jay Macpherson's The Boatman," which appeared in Canadian Literature in 1960. Fortunately, that article is almost definitive. Superficially, there seem to be some obvious differences between The Boatman and Welcoming Disaster. The second in some ways seems much "simpler." It is my purpose here to explore some of the similarities and differences with the aid of Jay Macpher- son's other writings,2 which include two theses, two lectures, and a children's text on classical mythology. As Reaney makes clear, the central myth of The Boatman is that of the ark. The ark appears to contain us, as though we were trapped in the belly of some monstrous creature, and its contents appear to be hopelessly miscellaneous; but properly perceived, Man, in fact, contains the ark, and its contents are ordered: In a poem entitled "The Anagogic Man" we are presented with ... the figure of a sleeping Noah whose head contains all creation ... The whole collection of poems requires the reader to transfer himself from the sleep our senses keep to Noah's sleep, and from Noah's sleep eventually to the first morning in Paradise. -
I Make Contact: Contributive Bookselling and the Small Press In
i Make Contact: Contributive Bookselling and the Small Press in Canada Following the Second World War Cameron Alistair Owen Anstee A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctorate in Philosophy degree in English Literature Department of English Faculty of Arts University of Ottawa © Cameron Alistair Owen Anstee, Ottawa, Canada, 2017 ii Abstract This dissertation examines booksellers in multiple roles as cultural agents in the small press field. It proposes various ways of understanding the work of booksellers as actively shaping the production, distribution, reception, and preservation of small press works, arguing that bookselling is a small press act unaccounted for in existing scholarship. It is structured around the idea of “contributive” bookselling from Nicky Drumbolis, wherein the bookseller “adds dimension to the cultural exchange […] participates as user, maker, transistor” (“this fiveyear list”). The questions at the heart of this dissertation are: How does the small press, in its material strategies of production and distribution, reshape the terms of reception for readers? How does the bookseller contribute to these processes? What does independent bookselling look like when it is committed to the cultural and aesthetic goals of the small press? And what is absent from literary and cultural records when the bookseller is not accounted for? This dissertation covers a period from 1952 to the present day. I begin by positing Raymond Souster’s “Contact” labour as an influential model for small press publishing in which the writer must adopt multiple roles in the communications circuit in order to construct and educate a community of readers. -
Imperial Commerce and the Canadian Muse the Hudson’S Bay Company’S Poetic Advertising Campaign of 1966–1972
Michael Ross and Lorraine York Imperial Commerce and the Canadian Muse The Hudson’s Bay Company’s Poetic Advertising Campaign of 1966–1972 In July of 1965, Barbara Kilvert, the Executive Assistant of Public Relations with the Hudson’s Bay Company, kicked off an unusual advertising campaign by buying a poem from Al Purdy. She had come across a review of Cariboo Horses in the May issue of Time magazine, and, in her words, “decided I should make contact.” As she later reminisced, “This was the beginning of it all.” “It all” referred to a promotional venture inaugurated by Purdy’s “Arctic Rhododendrons”—a series of ads featuring “new poems by Canadian poets, with layout design handled by young artists” (Kilvert, Annotation, Purdy Review). Over the next six years, the advertisements appeared in such respected periodicals as Quarry, The Tamarack Review, Canadian Literature, The Malahat Review, Cité Libre, and Liberté. Participants in the ad campaign made for an impressive roster of writers, including, besides Purdy, Margaret Atwood, Earle Birney, Louis Dudek, Joan Finnegan, Phyllis Gotlieb, Ralph Gustafson, D. G. Jones, Gustave Lamarche, Gwendolyn MacEwen, John Newlove, Alden Nowlan, Michael Ondaatje, Fernand Ouellette, P. K. Page, Jean-Guy Pilon, James Reaney, A. J. M. Smith, Raymond Souster, and Miriam Waddington. Focussing on HBC’s use of original works by Canadian poets in three of these journals—Quarry, Tamarack, and Canadian Literature—(See Appendix), this essay assesses the consequences of recontextualizing poems within a commercial frame of reference. Some of those consequences, as we will argue, were positive. Others, however, were troubling; poetic meaning could irresistibly be drawn into the orbit of HBC’s commercial objectives.