The Essential James Reaney

James Reaney was born on a farm in South Easthope near Stratford, Ontario in 1926. He has won the Governor General’s Award three times for his poetry, though he is perhaps better-known as a playwright, especially for his landmark Donnelly trilogy (1974-75). Reaney’s theatrical adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking-Glass returned to the stage at Stratford in the summer of 1996.

His work includes: The Red Heart, poems, 1949; A suit of Nettles, poems, 1958; Twelve Letters to a Small Town, poems, 1962; The Killdeer & Other Plays, drama, 1962; Colours in the Dark, drama, 1969; Collected Poems, 1972; Listen to the Wind, drama, 1972; The Donnellys, a trilogy of plays, 1974-75; Baldoon (with C.H. Gervais), 1976; The Boy With an R in His Hand, young adult, 1980; Take the Big Picture, young adult, 1986; Alice Through the Looking-Glass, stage adaptation, 1994. James Reaney died in 2008.

Brian Bartlett has published seven collections and six chapbooks of poetry. He has also edited several poetry books, including earlier volumes in the Essential Poets series—The Essential Robert Gibbs and The Essential James Reaney—and the Collected Poems of Alden Nowlan. His recent prose work includes a book of nature writing, Branches Over Ripples: A Waterside Journal (Gaspereau, 2017) and All Manner of Tackle: Prose on Poetry (Palimpsest, 2017). His work has garnered numerous honours, including the Atlantic Poetry Prize, two Malahat Review Long Poem Prizes, and the Acorn Plantos Award for People’s Poetry. Since 1990 Bartlett has taught Creative Writing and various fields of Literature at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax.