Letters in Canada: 1963

LEITERS IN CANADA: 1963 EDITED BY F. W. WAIT The number of books in the fields of history and social studies continues to increase. This year Professor G. M. Craig shared the burden of local and regional studies with Monis Zaslow; Professor John Willis has reviewed a group of books on law following Alexander Brady's survey of national and international studies; and-a particularly welcome addition -an assessment of the unusually large output of books on Canadian furniture and other artefacts has been provided by June Biggar of the Canadiana Department of the Royal Ontario Museum. The regular contributors have shown their usual promptness in submitting their manuscripts, and the Officers of the Press have provided the generous co-operation without which it would be impossible to conduct this annual survey. I want especially to thank Mrs. Marion Magee and Mrs. V. A. Grant for their patience and helpfulness. POETRY Milton Wilson This is my fourth year surveying the poetry in English, and it has certainly been the least exciting of the four. The staple product is substantial enough, even distinctive, but high points are hard to find. The best are not exactly full of passionate intensity, while the worst have at least the courage of their convictions. Good but unexceptional work by established writers and definitive collections by lesser ones: roughly speaking, that's the pattern. If 1963 deserves to be remembered, it is mainly because Milton Acorn at last published a fuJI-scale collection (in fact, two of them, if you count the Spring issue of the Fiddlehead), and also because a few interesting young poets (such as Gwendolyn MacEwen ) have been given the chance to show themselves at some length. I I haven't seen all of Eldon Grier's earlier books (there are at least three of them, they have had very limited circulation, and nOne has been Volume XXXII!, Numbe,. 4, July, .1964 ...