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CANADIAN POETRY’S COMING OF AGE:
1965—1990

Andrew McEwan
Hoeniger Book Collection Prize 2011 Winner

Hoeniger Book Collection Prize 2012 application is available until May 4, 2012. Apply Now!

Collection Statement

This collection of books of Canadian poetry between 1965 and 1990 represents the great development in the modes, voices, and forms in Canadian poetry that occurred within the period. The collection is made up of Canadian, mainly first edition, soft cover poetry books. The economy of the soft cover book allowed influential small presses to print otherwise unknown Canadian poets, creating a national poetry community. This collection includes a number of signed copies, as well as one short-run chapbook. These items showcase the range of Canadian poets that emerged in the post-war years that defined Canadian literature as its own entity, rather than as a minor form of English literature.

Major areas represented in this collection include the increased publication of women writers, who used poetry to interrogate the sexual inequalities of contemporary life and language. Another influential group of the period was the TISH poets, out of Vancouver. These poets included Daphne Marlatt, George Bowering, and Fred Wah, who used linguistic innovation in their work to probe narratives of individuality and community. Major Toronto poets also figure heavily in the collection with the likes of Margaret Atwood, bill bissett, Dennis Lee, bpNichol and Michael Ondaatje. These poets gave voice to urban Canada, and the problematic role of the civic environment. bill bissett, bpNichol, and Steve McCaffery represent the new directions of post-modern avant-garde writing that are specifically Canadian. Also, significant development of the Canadian long-poem occurred in this period, with bpNichol’s Martyrology books, Michael Ondaatje’s seminal Long Poem Anthology, and Robert Kroetch’s Field Notes. Finally, French-Canadian and lesbian writings are represented in the first translations of Nicole Brossard’s influential “Blue Books,” which relentlessly enact the limitations of language both in terms of gender, as well as culture.

The period between 1965 and 1990 was, in many ways, the foundation of modern Canadian poetry. The developments in representation, diversity and awareness, created the national identity Canadian poetry is known for today.