20th Century Poetry and Poetics is considered the most important teaching anthology published in Canada for poetry courses at the college and university market. The greatly anticipated fourth edition of the anthology was published in the Spring of 1996 and the number of poets included wasexpanded by more than fifty per cent. The twenty-five poets new to this edition - - twelve women and thirteen men - are from Canada, the UK, the United States, and the Commonwealth. The list of new poets include Nobel Prize winner Dereck Walcott; well-known American poets Sharon Olds, Louise Gluck, Denise Levertov, Galway Kinnell, Robert Hass, Robert Bly, John Ashbery, Philip Levine, and Rita Dove; Irish poet Eavan Boland; Scottish poet Carol Ann Duffy; and Canadians PatrickLane, Sharon Thesen, Gwendolyn MacEwen, Don McKay, Daphne Marlatt, Gary Geddes, Bronwen Wallace, Robert Kroetsch, Lorna Crozier, Tim Lilburn, Roo Borson, and bpNichol. The book provides in-depth selections from the work of each poet, and where possible, places the poems in the significant context of the poets' own views on poetics. In addition, there are useful biographies and comments on the poets in the form of headnotes that appear at the beginning of eachpoet's work.

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

"As a reference text for those well versed in poetry, it offers enough to confirm and challenge predjudices. As a starting point for someone first showing an interest in verse, it's just as likely to create a new Walcott as a new Marlatt, and that speaks volumes about the fine job Geddes hasdone. Edmonton Journal