Canadian Anthologies, New and Old

Abstract

The publication, in Canada, the United States, and England, of a compact anthology of Canadian poetry in the widely circulated Penguin Books is an event of more than literary importance. For quite apart from its merit the new book seems, as one of the reviewers in the Toronto press put it, “foredoomed” to have a big sale not only in Canada but throughout the whole English-speaking world. People in England and America who want to know whether Canada has an intellectual and spiritual identity are going to seek an answer in the hundred and twenty pages of this book. That they may perhaps be a little disappointed is not Mr Gustafson's fault. His scope was hardly large enough, and he has wisely avoided attempting the impossible. There is refreshingly little in his introduction—as there is much in the prefaces of previous anthologists—about Nationhood, Empire, the Canadian Spirit, and abstractions of that sort. Instead he merely tells us that he has tried to make a small collection of good poems written by Canadians since Confederation. “I have measured and judged my material,” he writes, “not by historical significance nor by 'Canadianism' but in terms of vitality. . . . I am hoping that the poems herein will become synonymous with pleasure.” This is admirable, for it enables us to discuss the book as poetry and to discover why, although it is much slighter than many previous Canadian anthologies, it is one of the best that has ever been made. Such a statement is not in itself, alas, very high praise, and there is much more to be said in favour of the new collection than that, just as there is something to be said also about the weakening effect of the limitations imposed upon the compiler. The book is so good that we are surprised and a little annoyed that it isn't better.