Edited by Milton Wilson even the title of this New Canadian Library publication by McClelland and Stewart sounds stodgy. The poets represented here are the backbone of Canadian Literature—Earl Birney, James Reaney, Alden Nowlan, Irving Layton…. Those who still live would probably be embarrassed to read these juvenile tomes today. Half a century ago Canada was still largely an agrarian society, divorce virtually unknown, and most people attended church regularly. The telephone and electricity were modern innovations, motor cars were luxuries and television had not been invented. The copy I picked up in a local used book store is a first edition yellowed paperback and lacks an ISBN.
Poetry of this era was still expected to rhyme and the subject matter is bucolic and moralistic. Many of the allusions are anachronistic in this age of instant communication, the internet, and space exploration. All this by way of saying that this book is an artifact of its time and place; but only a few of the poems would make it into a collection of the respective artists' best works.
