Other Channels: An Anthology of New Canadian Poetry

G. Sheldon Fischer was a Toronto-based editor.

Other Channels contains pieces by 66 poets from across Canada. I presume the editors chose to include only one poem from each writer in order to present as many different voices as possible. I would have preferred to see fewer poets represented, with several poems by each.

Almost all English-language poetry, it has been observed, centres on either love, death, or nature. Recently the last topic has been replaced by a new one: politics. All three subjects are amply represented here. There is insight and feeling in such poems as “Interpreter of Silence” (Barbra Wilson) which studies the subtleties of communication, or lack thereof, in a lovers’ relationship; or “Wasyl Szerczyk” (James Strecker), a commemoration of a Ukrainian immigrant who lived out a simple but dignified peasant life on the prairies. “The Last Train” (Mercier Fournier) recalls the pain and suspense of an escape from Poland.

Many of the poems are show-off pieces, however, playing with words and ideas for their own sake, written for initiates and fellow poets but not for a wider reading public. How many people know who or what “boddhisattva,” “Basho,” or “EQ” are? (“Five Minutes Ago They Dropped the Bomb,” Chris Faiers). And despite ee. cummings, Ginsberg, et al., I do not like the spellings “aftr,” “cornr,” “uv,” etc. (“Fr Alex Smirnoff,” j.w. curry).

Another shortcoming of this anthology is that it lacks any poems from the new work poets, who constitute a movement and a type of writing that is new not merely in form but in substance. That being said, this is still an interesting cross-sectional view of what is being written by younger Canadian poets.