An anthology of Canadian poetry published by a British publisher, and edited by two Canadian ex-pats does have an in-built advantage. On this side of the great pond, at least, the readership won’t be party to the inevitable cries of foul play over the absences and inclusions, and, to a lesser extent, the editors won’t be bad-mouthed in the streets of London and Manchester. That said, Jones and Swift stake out the parameters of their anthology early in their introduction: no ‘loud-mouthed, formless Everyman whose verse dominates many Canadian anthologies’ – so that’s Al Purdy and Patrick Lane out, I take it! And none of the really major figures whose stuff we actually know ‘over here’ – Leonard Cohen, Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje; these latter two on the grounds that, basically, verse is not their major concern, or, in the case of Cohen, he’s too well-known already.
At the same time, their anthology is, itself, corralled by demography. A number of Jones and Swift’s poets inevitably came to Canada as emigrants, or the children of emigrants. And while they acknowledge the vastness of Canada’s geography as a major signifier, they want to emphasise the variant populations of Canada, its cosmopolitanism. Thus ‘The poets in this anthology are Canadian by birth, citizenship, residency, choice, exile, marriage, accident or ancestry.’ In effect, their attempt at deciding who is a ‘Canadian poet’ is as fraught as any of the previous attempts.
This large (in every sense) anthology begins with some terrific poems. Modernism seems to have struck deep into the hearts of Canadian poets working in the early, mid-twentieth century. And the first poets in this book, W.W.E. Ross, John Glassco, A.M.Klein and Alfred Bailey seem particularly smitten with modernism’s desire to work the image to its limit and beyond. The poems by Klein and Bailey seem major pieces by anybody’s standard; particularly the latter’s ‘The Isoceles Lighthouse’, ‘The empty lighthouse stood where the man who built it died./Skulls, ribs, hips, and thigh-shanks,/found there,/seven in number,/gave it a name to leave it alone, and yet -/What was it drew the eye, the questioning thought…’ And Klein’s ‘Portrait of the Poet as Landscape’ with its seven rolling sections is a tour-de-force.
Another great strength of this anthology is Jones and Swift’s inclusion of wonderful women writers right from the start of the book. And the obvious care they have taken to search out writers who have dropped out of view. An example of the latter is Joan Murray born in London but who studied in New York with, amongst others, W.H.Auden whose influence, but not deadening hand, is felt in poems such as, the wonderful dialogue poem ‘Epithalamium’, and who died tragically young.
Among the younger poets present here, some have some presence in the UK: Anne Carsons, primarily, but also Don Coles, Eric Ormsby and Norm Sibum. But the newer poets introduced to the UK for the first time are formidably strong; ranging from the tender sensualities of Dionne Brand to the narrative ventriloquisms of George Elliot Clarke. This is a lovely book; full poems that really stand up, and to which you will keep returning.
Ian Pople