Among The Millet


Book Description

"Among the Millet and Other Poems" is a collection by Archibald Lampman, a Canadian poet associated with the Confederation Poets. Published in 1888, this collection is considered one of Lampman's significant contributions to Canadian literature during the late 19th century. In "Among the Millet," Lampman explores themes related to nature, rural life, and the human experience. His poetry often reflects a deep connection to the Canadian landscape, and he is known for his ability to evoke the beauty and spirituality inherent in the natural world.







Lyrics of Earth


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Alcyone


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Book Excerptchalklike armsOf him that oared it, dumbly to and fro, Went gliding, and the struggling ghosts in swarmsLeaped in and passed, but myriads more behindCrowded the dismal beaches. One might hearA tumult of entreaty thin and clearRise like the whistle of a winter wind.And still the little figure stood besideThe hideous stream, and toward the whispering prowHeld forth his tender tremulous hands, and cried, Now to the awful ferryman, and nowTo her that battled with the shades in vain.Sometimes impending over all her sightThe spongy dark and the phantasmal flightOf things half-shapen passed and hid the plain.And sometimes in a gust a sort of windDrove by, and where its power was hurled, She saw across the twilight, jarred and thinned, Those gloomy meadows of the under world, Where never sunlight was, nor grass, nor trees, And the dim pathways from the Stygian shore, Sombre and swart and barren, wandere




The Confederation Group of Canadian Poets, 1880-1897


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As one of the formative periods in Canadian history, the late nineteenth century witnessed the birth of a nation, a people, and a literature. In this study of Canada's first 'school' of poets, D.M.R. Bentley combines archival work, including extensive research in periodicals and newspapers, with close readings of the work of Charles G.D. Roberts, Archibald Lampman, Bliss Carman, William Wilfred Campbell, Duncan Campbell Scott, and Frederick George Scott. Bentley chronicles the formation, reception, national and international successes, and eventual disintegration (after the 1895 'War Among the Poets') of the Confederation Group, whose poetry forever changed the perception and direction of Canadian literature. With the aid of biographical, political, and sociological analyses, Bentley's literary history delineates the group's political, aesthetic, and thematic dispositions and characteristics, and contextualizes them not only within Canadian history and politics, but also within contemporary intellectual and literary currents, including Romantic nationalism, 'Canadianism', and poetic formalism. Bentley casts new light on the poets' commonalities - such as their debt to Young Ireland, their commitment to careful workmanship, and their participation in the American mind-cure movement - as well as on their most accomplished and anthologized poems from 1880 to 1897. In the process, he presents a compelling case for the literary and historical importance of these six men and their poems in light of Canada's cultural and political past, and defends their right to be known as Canada's first poetic fraternity at a time when Canada was striving to achieve literary and national distinction. The Confederation Group of Canadian Poets, 1880-1897 is an erudite and innovative work of literary history and critical interpretation that belongs on the bookshelf of every serious scholar of literary studies.







Lyrics on Freedom, Love and Death


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Orion, and Other Poems


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Archibald Lampman


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Treasuring the past, savouring the present, and wanting to do right by the future, Archibald Lampman was a poet keenly focused on the workings of time. He was also a thinker of mystical predisposition. His goal was not to transcend time, but to find redemptive meaning within it. Archibald Lampman: Memory, Nature, Progress explores the ways in which Lampman pursued this goal in relation to the three faces of time. Memory fascinated Lampman. He relished the “alchemy” by which the dross of past experience could be left behind and the gold preserved. Nature compelled his mind and emotions, and his clear-eyed observations of both countryside and wilderness settings gave rise to a self-evolved poetics of inclusiveness. In his celebrations of nature in all its manifestations, mild or bleak, he anticipated the work of iconic Canadian painter Tom Thomson and he forecasted the environmentalism of our own time. Progress for Lampman spelled societal rectification. By forwarding the cause of social betterment, one was part of a movement larger than oneself, and this expansion, too, was redemptive. Archibald Lampman: Memory, Nature, Progress is the first book on this foundational figure in Canadian literature to appear in over twenty-five years and the first thematically focused study. Combining close analysis with biographical context, it shows how Lampman’s oeuvre was shaped by his responses to his physical surroundings and to his social-intellectual milieu, as filtered through his stubbornly independent outlook.




Conversations with a Dead Man


Book Description

As a poet and citizen deeply concerned by the Oka Crisis, the Idle No More protests, and Canada’s ongoing failure to resolve First Nations issues, Montreal author Mark Abley has long been haunted by the figure of Duncan Campbell Scott, known both as the architect of Canada’s most destructive Aboriginal policies and as one of the nation’s major poets. Who was this enigmatic figure who could compose a sonnet to an “Onondaga Madonna” one moment and promote a “final solution” to the “Indian problem” the next? In this passionate, intelligent and highly readable inquiry into the state of Canada’s troubled Aboriginal relations, Abley alternates between analysis of current events and an imagined debate with the spirit of Duncan Campbell Scott, whose defense of the Indian Residential School and belief in assimilation illuminate the historical roots underlying today’s First Nations’ struggles.




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