Seminal: The Anthology of Canada's Gay Male Poets [Paperback]

John Barton (Editor), Billeh Nickerson (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2007

A groundbreaking, comprehensive anthology of Canadian gay male poetry, the first of its kind, that reveals a national queer poetics, both dandyesque and eloquent. The material ranges from the 1890s to the present day and comprises poets from every region of the country, including Quebec, translated into English for the first time. For many, the queer experience is central to their aesthetic, offering works of startling beauty and originality that go beyond borders.

Contributors include bill bissett, Robin Blaser, Clint Burnham, John Glassco, Douglas LePan, Stan Persky, Andy Quan, Bill Richardson, Stan Persky, George Stanley, and RM Vaughan.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Considering the virtual invisiblity of gay Canadian poetry, its hefty 368 pages come as a surprise. The range of voices and styles is impressive too, from the in-your-face iconoclasm of bill bissett and Sky Gilbert to the bittersweet humour of RM Vaughan and George Stanley.
—Xtra! West & Xtra (Xtra! & Xtra! West 20070501)

Seminal ranges from Frank Oiver Call's turn-of-the-20th-century odes on Grecian boys to, well, Shane Rhodes' turn-of-the-21st-century odes on Grecian condoms (i.e. Trojans).
—Genre (Genre 20070516)

This collection of new and recent poetry by Gay Male Canadians is something of a revelation.... The editors, John Barton and Billeh Nickerson, have taken great care to expose the breadth of the work that has accumulated throughout the 20th century into the 21st century. Their goal, it is apparent, is to show the world that the language of the gay soul is alive and well, and frankly kicking, in the freer world of Canadian authors.
—EDGE Boston (EDGE Boston 20070501)

This volume provides solid proof that [Canada] has a substantial queer poetic canon all its own.
—Richard Labonte, Books to Watch Out For (Books to Watch Out For 20070614)

John Barton and Billeh Nickerson have done an incredible job bringing together the works of 57 writers.... Seminal encompasses life in all its ugly beautiful glory, but what makes this book live up to its name even more is that the works do not only appeal to gay men--like all effective poetry, there are universal themes that all should read and hopefully be moved by.
—Monday Magazine (Victoria, BC) (Monday Magazine 20070721)

This anthology (with its double-entrendre title) collects an impressive range of gay male poets, both English and French, from familiar names such as bill bissett, Sky Gilbert, and R.M. Vaughan, to more surprising inclusions such as Emile Nelligan, Bill Richardson, and Joel Gibb of the indie-rock group The Hidden Cameras.
—Quill & Quire (Quill & Quire 20070730)

Readers might have some favorite Canadian writers, and we all havesome idea how gay liberation north of the border reflects and complements our own. But to get a real feeling for Canadian gay male voices—from the 1890s to today—it would be hard to top Seminal: The Anthology of Canada's Gay Male Poets. Editors John Barton and Billeh Nickerson have put together a groundbreaking collection.... This collection is really important and something to celebrate. ArsenalPulp Press in Vancouver continues to impress with a catalog of titlesthat are entertaining, original and sometimes historic.
—Mandate (Mandate 20071231)

The first of its kind, it is a major addition to the rather thin shelf of Canadian gay lit.... Not only does the collection rescue several key writers from neglect or oblivion (like two-time Governor-General Award winner Robert Finch, or the groundbreaking Edward Lacey, one of Canada's first out gay poets. It also reaches outside the usual Canadian canon to establish new geneologies of connection.... I wish this collection had been around when I was a teenager. It deserves a place in every high school library.
—Toronto Star (Toronto Star 20081001)

Both John Barton and Billeh Nickerson deserve accolades for fathering this historic, vital and truly seminal text.
— George Elliott Clarke, Halifax Chronicle Herald (Halifax Chronicle Herald 20070915)

This is a book for all lovers of poetry, regardless of social, sexual or political status. Perhaps most striking about Seminal is its universality and its fidelity to the music and sheer sense of poetry at its core; poetry that, as all good poetry must, transcends time and place with universal insight and compassion.
—Multicultural Review (Multicultural Review )

Barton's introduction is, simply, brilliant.... The brief history of early poets, such as Emile Nelligan, John Glassco, Douglas LePan, Patrick Anderson, E.A. Lacey, and Daryl Hine, is a note-perfect initiation into an often disregarded coterie.
—Canadian Literature (Canadian Literature )

The editors cast a wide net.... The volume succeeds, in the words of the introduction, in providing a "point of departure to revisit, revise or even repudiate" the constructed tradition. Recommended for Canadian libraries and for libraries in the United States which have LGBT Studies or Canadian Studies programs.
—GLBT Round Table Newsletter (American Library Association) (GLBT Round Table Newsletter )

About the Author

Billeh Nickerson is author of the poetry collection The Asthmatic Glassblower (Arsenal, 2000) and the essay collection Let Me Kiss It Better (Arsenal, 2002); he also co-edited Seminal: The Anthology of Canada?s Gay Male Poets (Arsenal, 2007). A long-time resident of Vancouver, he recently relocated to Toronto.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press (June 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1551522179
• ISBN-13: 978-1551522173
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,128,087 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #57 in Books > Gay & Lesbian > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Gay

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Only the Best, February 26, 2008

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Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Seminal: The Anthology of Canada's Gay Male Poets (Paperback)

I don't know how much titling this collection SEMINAL is going to help sales of the book, it is the sort of title you might think twice about applying to a book people are going to be holding in both hands. I'm still feeling sort of sticky after many, repeated, complusive readings of SEMINAL, one of the best anthologies of poetry I've read in quite a while. Editors John Barton and Billeh Nickerson are to be commended for going in wide and pulling out deep, and their research is a marvel of compression and understanding. I learned more facts from SEMINAL than I've learned otherwise in the whole month of February. I had no idea, for example, that Clint Burnham was even gay, so that this book serves as a sort of "coming out" ceremony for (I assume) many of its contributors, sort of the way its American equivalent, WORD OF MOUTH edited by Timothy Liu, effectively outed one of the great US poets, William Bronk, by including him among the contributors.

SEMINAL has an enormous sweep, and you can trace the rocky path of Canadian modernism through its hills and valleys, and the occasional barbarisms which attend the birth of something huge and inhuman. Modernism, like homosexuality, was viewed by the Canadian poetry establishment as something of a foreign taint, and if you had it, you had been infected by a grave outside spectre. The spectacle of John Sutherland "reviewing" Patrick Anderson's poetry in 1943, in a "little magazine" called PREVIEW, was itself a preview for another half century of witch hunting and homophobia; suddenly the terms were on the table, "cosmopolitan" (bad) versus "native" (straight), and to a certain extent their meanings continue to proliferate, in politics and inside the poem itself, the Canadian poem. The editors give us some interesting poets here, and some who aren't so good somehow redeem themselves by the interestingness of their lives and legends. And the good ones are brilliant, from Emile Nelligan through R. M. Vaughan and beyond to the present day.

I was glad to see John Barton and Billeh Nickerson have included their own work in the anthology, up against the likes of Robin Blaser, bill bissett, Brion Gysin. Too many editors just sit in the background, making shadows out of their own light; claiming a false modesty that is somehow very Canadian. The truth is, Barton and Nickerson should be encouraged to publish more and more of their work. I cannot agree with the other reviewer who said there were too many Canadians in this book.