Endeared by Dark: The Collected Poems

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

Johnston may well be Canada’s most accomplished poet in the sense that
he writes poetry as a craft, not as self-revelation, or propaganda, or
“high art,” or psychological therapy. He is preoccupied with
rhythms, with diction, with tones and nuances, and the creative
challenge of complex metres and stanza forms.

His significance has been recognized by fellow-poets Margaret Atwood,
George Bowering, P.K. Page, and David Solway, but critics and
anthologists have lagged behind. He is scandalously absent from many of
the most influential student anthologies, and, when he is represented,
it is usually through his wryly comic poems of bizarre domesticity that
appeared in his first and impressive volume, The Crusing Auk. But at
about the time that book was published, Johnston embarked on the study
of Old Norse and related languages, and the result was not only a fine
set of translations, but a new accentual stringency in his own verse.
This verse still celebrates ordinary life, in tones that vary between
the ironic and the sombre, and the tender and the stoic, but its
technique is impeccable, and its chief pleasure lies in the display of
an unostentatious but formidable artistry. He is also the master of
“occasional” poetry, and most of these poems have worn well,
transcending their immediate occasions with shrewd insights and
unpretentious wisdom. Above all, he discovers a new originality within
the deeply traditional.

Endeared by Dark, with some minor exceptions, brings together all
Johnston’s published work and includes a few new poems. Here at last
we can see the full range and amplitude of his art. The best words in
the best order, as Coleridge said. There is now no excuse for
anthologists. The whole of George Johnston’s verse is important, and
this collection is a must for all connoisseurs of true poetry.