Charles Bruce
Charles Bruce was a Canadian poet and journalist born in Port Shoreham, Nova Scotia, in 1906. He was the son of a farmer and a former schoolteacher, with roots in Nova Scotia dating back to the Revolutionary War. Bruce's education at Mount Allison University led him to a career in journalism, starting with the Halifax Chronicle and later the Canadian Press News Agency. His literary debut came with the publication of his first poetry collection, "Wild Apples," in 1927. Throughout his life, Bruce was known for his traditional verse form, often exploring themes related to the Nova Scotia landscape, particularly in works like "Tomorrow's Tide" and "The Mulgrave Road," which garnered critical acclaim and won the Governor General's Award for Poetry.
Despite his early success, Bruce's traditional style faced challenges as literary trends evolved, and by the time of his death in Toronto in 1971, he was becoming less recognized. However, his contributions to Canadian literature, particularly through his narrative poetry and storytelling, remain significant. His works often reflect a deep connection to his homeland, creating a vivid portrayal of life along the Nova Scotia coast. The resurgence of interest in his poetry, particularly through biographical works and reprints, highlights his enduring legacy as a regional poet within the broader context of Canadian literature.
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Charles Bruce
Writer
- Born: May 11, 1906
- Birthplace: Port Shoreham, Nova Scotia, Canada
- Died: December 19, 1971
- Place of death: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Biography
Charles Bruce was born in Port Shoreham, Nova Scotia, Canada, the son of William Henry Bruce, a farmer and fisherman, and Sarah Bruce, a former schoolteacher. His ancestors had settled in Nova Scotia just after the Revolutionary War. Bruce attended Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, where he edited the student newspaper. He graduated in 1927, the same year he had privately published his first volume of verse, Wild Apples, and the same year he joined the Halifax Chronicle as a reporter. Soon after, he joined the Canadian Press News Agency. In 1929, he married Agnes King, by whom he had four sons, one of whom, Harry, also became an author.
In 1933, he was transferred to Toronto, where he was to live for almost forty years. The year before, his second collection of verse, Tomorrow’s Tide, had been published; the book confirmed Bruce as a poet who wrote in traditional verse form, but with a noticeable tension between his form and subject matter. The poems celebrated the physical landscape, especially that of his native Nova Scotia.Personal Note appeared in 1941, a long poetic statement of belief in humanity’s goodwill, more thesis than poetry in places, and Bruce’s reaction to the outbreak of World War II. Bruce covered the war as a correspondent for Canadian Press, leading to the publication of Grey Ship Moving (1945). The title refers to a troop ship, where four officers share their experiences. The volume contains poems from the late 1930’s, when Bruce began moving into free verse, and includes a long poem of praise to the former fishermen of Nova Scotia.
After the war, Bruce was one of the most respected Canadian newspapermen. He found fresh inspiration for his poetry by returning to his native Nova Scotia at frequent intervals and writing about the Chedabucto Bay area of Nova Scotia, which he fictionalized as the Channel Shore. He created Shore families, giving them genealogies and local histories, and convincingly combining time and place, almost in a style of magic realism. The Flowing Summer, a long narrative poem about the return of a Toronto boy to his father’s home by the seashore, was another manifestation of his new creativity. In addition to poetry, he produced a number of short stories and a single novel, The Channel Shore (1954), which tells of three generations of shore life from 1919 through 1946. Some of his short stories were collected in The Township of Time: A Chronicle in 1959.
His best-known volume of poetry, The Mulgrave Road (1951), won the Governor General’s Award for Poetry. Written in strict metrical form, it evokes haunting memories and images of the sea and the way the sea has become internalized into the depths of the poetic imagination. However, the tide of poetry was running in other directions. Bruce was too provincial, too traditional in form and subject matter, and while some of his poems appeared in the first Oxford Book of Canadian Verse, none were published in the later edition. By the time he died in Toronto in 1971, his name was already receding into obscurity. Andy Wainwright’s book, Charles Bruce: A Literary Biography (1988), helped keep his name alive, and in recent years The Mulgrave Road has been reprinted. The book will hopefully remain in print; regional poets, like Bruce, have a distinctive place in any national literature.