thepoets

Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo. - Don Marquis

Unfortunately, this is often true – but every once and awhile someone comes along and presents poems and poets of old – to remind us of what poetry was, is, and can be…and that faint echo wafts up from below and whispers in our ear to come and read what has been set aside and forgotten.

ARC Poetry Magazine’s Summer 2007 (58) issue is an example of this. This edition of the magazine is about, in their words:

13 dead poets you should know but don’t
Resurrecting Canada’s Forgotten and Neglected

…these poets are:
Avi Boxer Douglas LePan
Louise Morey Bowman Philip Child
George Faludy James Denoon
Cheng Sait Chia Thomas D’Arcy McGee
Paul Potts Joseph Howe
Dorothy Roberts Kenneth Leslie
Audrey Alexandra Brown

Here, they introduce to us these poets of the past (and recent past) and give us history, analysis, and examples of their work. They were not, and are not, necessarily household names, but their work contained vigor and an honesty which helped paved the way for contemporary Canadian poetry.

There’s 200 plus pages of essays and poetry which engage us as they highlight the life and work of each writer and the times in which they wrote.

The editors, in their introduction to the issue confess there was consternation and reservations about devoting a whole issue to dead poets. They need not have worried about this. Upon picking up this issue and reading through it you will be rewarded with a
satisfying read which is akin to opening an old box in the attic and finding a treasured artifact you forgot you had put away..

In this case, these artifacts speak, and hopefully their echo will continue on for many years to come.

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