Language Acts: Anglo-Québec Poetry, 1976 to the 21st Century

Language Acts brings together twenty provocative essays on the state of English-language poetry in Québec since 1976. Born and raised during this historically resonant period of Trudeauism, organized Québecois nationalism, language legislation, and profound demographic and cultural change, Anglo-Québec poetry has come of age in the 21st century as a literature with its own distinct arguments about itself, and its own poetical acts in language. Language Acts features essays on many important, even canonical, figures such as Robert Allen, Anne Carson, Leonard Cohen, Louis Dudek, D.G. Jones, Irving Layton, Michael Harris, Erin Mouré, David McGimpsey, Robyn Sarah, and Peter Van Toorn, and on a wide range of poetry activities including those of the Véhicule Poets and the Montreal Spoken Word scene. This is the first critical collection of its kind to appear in over forty years and will set the terms used to discuss English language poetry in Québec for years to come.

Reviews

It’s a book that opens your eyes to Montreal’s ethnic diversity… This book is a must for the diner-out.” –Julian Armstrong, Montreal Gazette