The New Canadian Poets 1970-1985

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.

In compiling this anthology, Dennis Lee offers an updated and substantial supplement to Eli Mandel’s Poets of Contemporary Canada (1972). Since 1970 was Mandel’s cut-off point, Lee has limited himself to poets who began publishing in volume-form after that date. As he admits, this slights a number of “late-developers” whom Mandel did not see fit to include. Lee provides a convenient list, of which Pat Lane and Lee himself seem the most notable. It is a shame that these two don’t have the McClelland and Stewart anthology representation they deserve.

Out of a bewildering mass of qualifying poets, Lee chose 45 (28 men, 17 women, for those interested in such statistics); of these, 20 are granted some fifteen pages each, while the remaining 25 are allotted about three. This tiered classification (rather like the three levels of the Order of Canada) can be contentious, but it is difficult to see what else he could do — though some of his placings can be challenged. Personally, I would have set Leona Gom and David Solway in the higher category (and dropped some of the others).

In some ways, the book is most valuable for Lee’s long, remarkable introduction, which is full of fresh observation and useful facts. He offers a splendidly clear-eyed survey of the terrain, forthright yet cautious, honest and perceptive, intelligent without being “academic.” It provides an excellent preface to the subject in general. Of the poetry itself, little can usefully be said in a brief review. By and large, the male poets who show that they have minds are more impressive than those who concentrate on assuring us that they have erections; and the women who keep to the more traditional female modes of sensitivity and compassion seem likely to wear better than those who accentuate the bold and brassy. This anthology proves indisputably that there are numerous young and talented poets jockeying for attention, though it fails to identify any that can be described as pre-eminent. Perhaps this will be an age remembered more for remarkable poems than for individual poets. At any rate, Lee has produced a challenging preliminary sifting, and he deliberately leaves further refining to us: “Readers may mentally edit a slimmer version of The New Canadian Poets for themselves; I welcome this, while pointing out that readers of other persuasions will do the same, with very different results.” The debate continues.