Modern Canadian Poets

An Anthology

Swift Todd, Jones Evan

Cosmopolitan, hybrid and eloquent, modern Canadian poetry is still, for many readers outside Canada, one of the great undiscovered terrains of world literature. "Modern Canadian Poets" sets out to end that neglect, redefining the connections between Canada and the international poetry world. From poets born in the early years of the twentieth century to those writing in the twenty-first, "Modern Canadian Poets" explores a lineage of modernist, multilingual, culturally pluralist writers who have engaged with other English- and French-speaking traditions in new ways, to make a literature that is unmistakably Canadian and international.

The thirty-five poets included represent a wide spectrum of Canadian poetry of the last hundred years in its variety of styles and traditions. Among them are French Canadian poets in translations by anglophone writers, and poets from the First Nations, Caribbean-Canadian and Africadian communities.

From their vantage point as Canadian poets living outside Canada, Evan Jones and Todd Swift draw a new map of this unique literary landscape.

About the Author

Todd Swift was born in Montreal and moved to Britain in 2003. He has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. He has published six collections of poetry, including "Seaway: New and Selected Poems" (2008) and has edited special sections on Canadian poetry for New American Writing, London Magazine and Jacket. He is co-editor, with Jason Camlot, of "Language Acts: Anglo-Quebec Poetry, 1976 to the 21st Century". He has been Oxfam GB Poet-in-residence since 2004. He is Lecturer in English Literature and Creative Writing at Kingston University.

Evan Jones was born in Toronto. A dual citizen of Canada and Greece, he has lived in Britain since 2005. He has a PhD in English and Creative Writing from the University of Manchester and has taught at York University in Toronto, and in Britain at the University of Bolton and Liverpool John Moores University. His first collection, "Nothing Fell Today But Rain" (2003), was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry. He is co-editor of the anthology "Modern Canadian Poets" (Carcanet, 2010).

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