Poetic Voices of the Maritimes

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.

Here are selections from 22 contemporary or near-contemporary poets,
most of whom lived or live in the Maritimes, and all of whom have
written extensively about the area and been deeply influenced by it. As
the editors note, the book aims to provide for the 1990s what Cockburn
and Gibbs’s Ninety Seasons: Modern Poems from the Maritimes (1974) and
Fred Cogswell’s Atlantic Anthology (1985) provided for earlier
decades.

It achieves its purpose. The standard is, in general, high and
illustrates the remarkable Maritime capacity for remaining faithful to
traditional, mainly rural themes while at the same time (though avoiding
the conspicuously avant-garde) achieving a tone that is unmistakably
up-to-date. One especially welcome feature is the inclusion of Elizabeth
Bishop, who, though technically American, was a spiritual Maritimer; a
high percentage of her Nova Scotian poems are included here and at last
take their rightful place alongside Canadian Maritime verse.

The editors have for the most part made their choices well, despite
some puzzling omissions—notably Alfred G. Bailey, Robert Gibbs, and
John Thompson. Milton Acorn’s lyrical and local poems are properly
favored over his more strident political/didactic ones. In particular,
female poets are well represented, from Elizabeth Brewster and Kay Smith
to younger writers like Janet Pope and Maxine Tyson, not to mention the
editors themselves. On the other hand, the selections from Alden Nowlan
omit most of his characteristic and well-known poems (possibly because
they are well known), and one gets the uneasy feeling that Rita Joe must
have been included as a required bow in the direction of “political
correctness.”

Their editorial principles, however, seem rather less happy. The
alphabetical ordering of poets disguises historical development (and
even the ordering of poems by individual poets seems haphazard). More
seriously, no clear information is given about when poems were written
or where they first appeared. More bibliographical help would also have
been welcome. Nonetheless, this is an attractive anthology, both as a
text for schools and universities and as a book for anyone who is
interested in the art of poetry.