"Weingarten has made a strong contribution, looking at texts and contexts, provoking thought, calling attention to poets who warrant further work, and opening up more light and space in the fragility of time. Aristotle and then Horace appealed to understanding and learning (and specifically poetry) as a delight. I can say that the poets Weingarten discusses do that more often than not and so, too, does Weingarten himself."
Jonathan Locke Hart, American Review of Canadian Studies
"Weingarten’s commendable research and polemical appeal will cause literary critics to reassess their impression of post-1960s lyric poetry, and may even cause contemporary poets to re-examine and re-evaluate the role of history in their own poetry."
Stephen Cain, York University, The Canadian Historical Review
"Weingarten contrasts Canadian poetry since 1960 with the fiction that usually dominates our understanding of this era. While novels often use the parodic strategies of what Linda Hutcheon calls ‘historiographic metafiction,’ many Canadian poets take a more personal and partial approach, finding in ‘the familial past’ a way out of uncertainty. Weingarten begins with Al Purdy and John Newlove, who ‘demonstrate to centennial-era writers that a sophisticated history obliges their admission of epistemological limits.’ After discussions of both canonical (Margaret Atwood and Lorna Crozier) and unrecognized poets (Barry McKinnon and Andrew Suknaski), Weingarten concludes with an account of the ‘subversive potential’ of Joan Crate’s Pale as Real Ladies: Poems for Pauline Johnson."
Tracy Ware, Department of English Language and Literature, Queen’s University
"I teach many of the poems discussed in Sharing the Past. With impressive readings of Al Purdy and John Newlove, in particular, J.A. Weingarten’s arguments are lucid, careful, and persuasive."
Neil Besner, Department of English, University of Winnipeg
"Sharing the Past answers a series of essential questions about the most important cohort in Canadian poetry since the Confederation era: Who were they? Why was history so integral to their project? How did they help to invent Canadian history with their poetry? Weingarten’s survey of this transnational generation presents a sophisticated model of excellent research, sharp analysis, and thoroughly contemporary methodology. This book represents a major step forward in bringing twentieth-century Canadian poetry into focus, effectively calibrating ongoing discussions with new considerations of decolonization, skeptical historicism, and new media theories."
Gregory Betts, Craig Dobbin Professor for Canadian Studies, University College Dublin
