Edited by Seymour Mayne and Glen Rotchin
This unique anthology gathers together, for the first time, poems dedicated to A.M. Klein or poems written about him by many of Canada's most established poets as well as younger writers. Some fifty works will be featured including poems by Dorothy Livesay, P.K. Page, Leonard Cohen, Leo Kennedy, Raymond Souster, Eli Mandel, and Miriam Waddington. A Rich Garland: Poems for A.M. Klein is a poetic celebration of one of Canada's most resonant and enduring voices on the 90th anniversary of his birth. A.M. Klein [1909-1972] is widely considered to be one of the great Canadian writers of the twentieth century. A Montreal editor, essayist, and novelist, Klein is perhaps best known and most admired as a poet. His dazzling mastery of language and poetic form has left an indelible mark on our national literature. His influence continues to be felt, amplified by the tragedy of his self-imposed, prolonged silence and untimely death.
Poetry 1998"There are few poets here or abroad who have inspired book-length collections of tribute poems. "Nobody, it appears, / either under his real name or his alias, / missed him enough to report," Klein says in his signature poem Portrait of the Poem as Landscape, published in 1948. The editors have thankfully dispelled this sentiment, at least for Klein himself." -Peter O'Brien, Montreal Gazette
Other books by Seymour Mayne: Jerusalem: An Anthology of Canadian Jewish Poetry