Canada Has at Least Ten Poets: Read in Case of Future Jeopardy! Question

Last month CBC took some time out to remind us that there are Canadian poets and make us feel guilty for not reading any of them. Oh CBC, I kid. It’s actually a good article and with the wealth of poets out there in Canadiana territory picking a top 10 must have been thankless task.

Readers will (perhaps) be relieved that they are no longer required to read George Bowering wax poetic about the eroticism of baseball or Al Purdy make metaphors about wood. Thankfully the list goes outside of the “Introduction to Canadian Poetry” canon and includes several women and non-white poets. Somehow I keep forgetting Dionne Brand is Canadian. I must remember to brag about this more when I leave the country.

Something else that caught my eye was despite claims to have “dropped several past masters in favor of some younger authors making their mark in this millennium”  I wouldn’t call these top 10 poets youngsters. Let’s just say none of them are twittering. Where are the Zoe Whittals? The Stuart Rosses? All those other hip poets that hang out in Toronto I keep trying to “accidentally” run into?

I think as a literary culture we tend to associate “Canadian Literature” with past generations, and it works to our deteriment by making it seem like there have only been 20 or so poets to have ever grown in Canada. And let me tell you, WE ARE LEGION. Seriously, I bet 10% of the people you know under 30 are poets. It’s like being left-handed, except that Stephen Harper takes your money away.

So… Read poetry! Go! Now!

Here’s the list to get you started:

Don McKay
Ken Babstock
Mary Dalton
Dionne Brand
Don Domanski
David McGimpsey
Skydancer Louise Bernice Halfe
Jeramy Dodds
Erin Mouré
Sheri-D Wilson

 

National Media Shocked to Find Women Have Political Opinions

Breaking news from Canada.com:

Recent polls by Ipsos Reid for CanWest News Service* show that support for the Conservatives among women trails support among men by a significant margin.

In the most recent Ipsos poll, released Dec. 22 […] forty-three per cent of men said they would vote for the Conservatives, compared with only 28 per cent of women.

Wow. I’m shocked why would women not want to vote for Harper? I mean, he’s got that awesome ken-doll hairdo.

Oh wait-

Critics also believe that women aren’t given enough prominence in the Conservative caucus or Harper’s cabinet. Just over 11 per cent of Conservative MPs (14 of 125) are women, compared with nearly 22 per cent of Liberal members (21 of 96).

and

One of the Harper government’s most high-profile decisions regarding women came in fall 2006, when it cut $5 million in administrative funding from Status of Women Canada, an agency that promotes gender equality.

Right. Yeah, I guess when a country’s leader treats a large portion of the electorate like crap; that portion tends to not want to vote for you. You’d think this would be a simple enough concept, but the media loves to treat women voters as some kind of wacky self-interest group they just can’t figure out.

According to the Ipsos Reid pollster guy:

Women tend to not to be as interested in the big-P political-power issues. For them politics isn’t necessarily about the cut and thrust of party politics or big-dollar economics or relationships among states,” said Bricker. “They tend to be focused more locally; they tend to be more interested in things that affect them and their families.

We, of course, don’t get the stats to back up exactly how he came to this conclusion, but I have to say I know a whole lot of women who are just as interested in foreign policy and voting strategy as they are in child care. I guess they weren’t asked to take part in the poll. It’s possible that women are interested in both, being that we’re not a giant monolithic group that all vote the same. Women want to participate in a system where they can elect someone who represents their varied interests and beliefs, just like men voters. I might have just blown Gwendolyn Landolt’s mind.

 

*A poll, I might add, that is not cited, not listed on the Ipsos Reid website, and Canwest has not responded to my citation request for…hmm…..