This collection now reaches back to include E.J. Pratt, A.M. Klein, F.R. Scott, Miriam Waddington, and Ralph Gustafson, and forward to include a representative sampling of the best writing of Anne Szumigalski, Robrt Kroetsch, Bronwen Wallace, Robert Bringhurst, and Robyn Sarah. (A selection ofGary Geddes's own work is also included.) There are not only short lyrics by these poets but a strong selection of longer poems by Pratt, Livesay, Newlove, Kroetsch, and others. The entire anthology provides an excellent overview of Canadian poetry in this century, presenting new subjects and newforms; an increase of poetics in the Notes; and a greater range of choices for teacher and student.

Gary Geddes was born in Vancouver and raised mostly on the west coast, where he gill netted, loaded boxcars at BC Sugar Refinery, stocked shelves at Woodwards, worked as a fishing guide at Whytecliffe, taught on Texada Island, and drove water-taxi. After doing graduate studies at Reading University in England and at the University of Toronto, he embarked on a varied career as a writer, teacher, editor, and publisher. Gary taught for twenty years at Concordia University in Montreal before returning to the west coast, where he was appointed Distinguished Professor of Canadian Culture at Western Washington University (1998-2001) and served as writer-in-residence at Green College (UBC), and the Vancouver Public Library. He has written and edited more than thirty-five books of poetry, fiction, drama, non-fiction, criticism, translation and anthologies, including 20th Century Poetry & Poetics and 15 Canadian Poets Times 3. His literary awards include the E.J. Pratt Medal and Prize (1970), the National Poetry Prize (1981), the Americas Best Book Award in the 1985 Commonwealth Poetry Competition, National Magazine Gold Award (1987), the Writers Choice Award (1988), Archibald Lampman Prize (1990 and 1996), the Poetry Book Society Recommendation (1996) and the Gabriela Mistral Prize (1996), which he shared with Nobel laureates Octavio Paz and Vaclav Havel and with Rafael Alberti, Ernesto Cardenal, and Mario Benedetti. Gary Geddes lives on Vancouver Island, where he divides his time between Victoria and French Beach.

Gary Geddes' profile page