A. J. M. Smith
A. J. M. Smith, born Arthur James Marshall Smith on November 8, 1902, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, was a prominent poet and scholar whose work significantly impacted Canadian literature. He was educated at McGill University, where he co-founded the McGill Fortnightly Review, the first Canadian literary journal focused on modern poetry. Smith's academic career began in the United States, notably at Michigan State University, where he eventually became a professor emeritus. He was an influential editor who sought to integrate Canadian poets writing in both English and French, highlighted in his groundbreaking 1960 anthology, *The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse: In English and French*. As a poet, Smith's work often reflected the Canadian landscape and grappled with themes of life, death, and spirituality, evident in his acclaimed collection, *News of the Phoenix, and Other Poems*, which won the Governor General's Literary Award in 1943. Throughout his career, he received various honors, including the Lorne Pierce Gold Medal for Literature and the Canada Council Medal. Despite his contributions, Smith's legacy remains contested among critics, with some praising his modernist approach while others question his focus on regionalism and its implications. His life and work continue to evoke diverse interpretations within the context of Canadian literary tradition.
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A. J. M. Smith
Poet
- Born: November 8, 1902
- Birthplace: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
- Died: November 21, 1980
- Place of death: East Lansing, Michigan
Biography
Poet and scholar Arthur James Marshall Smith, known as A. J. M. Smith, was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on November 8, 1902, the son of Octavius and Louise Smith. Though his career would take him to the United States, his Canadian heritage remained central to his poetry and scholarship.
At McGill University he earned both his B.S. (1925) and his M.A. (1926). As an undergraduate he cofounded the McGill Fortnightly Review, the first literary journal in Canada devoted exclusively to modern poetry and criticism. Prior to beginning doctoral studies, Smith married Jeannie Dougall Robins in 1927. Their union produced a son, Peter. In 1931 Smith received his Ph.D. from Edinburgh University.
Accepting a position as an assistant professor at Ball State Teachers College in Muncie, Indiana in 1930, Smith began a distinguished career in teaching, editing, and writing. During the Great Depression he served several Midwestern universities, including Michigan State College in Lansing (1931-1933), Doane College in Crete, Nebraska (1934-35), and the University of South Dakota in Vermillion (1935-36). Returning to Michigan State he found his permanent niche. Beginning as an instructor in 1936, he rose through the academic ranks, retiring as professor emeritus in 1972. To honor his legacy, Michigan State University established the A. J. M. Smith Award, annually bestowed upon a significant work by a Canadian poet. Until his death in 1980, Smith continued to write.
As an editor, Smith acknowledged Canadian poets of merit regardless of whether they wrote their poems in French or in English. Prior to Smith’s groundbreaking 1960 Oxford Book of Canadian Verse: In English and French, poets had been largely segregated by language preference. Smith dismantled that divide in his bilingual anthologies.
As a scholar, Smith focused his lens on works by seventeenth century metaphysical poets. He found in their ruminations on faith and death material for his own modernist poems. He also critiqued the poetry of T. S. Eliot and W. B. Yeats, fellow modernists with a spiritual yen. As a poet, Smith chose Canadian content for his poetry even as he incorporated aspects of a centuries’ old metaphysical preoccupation with life, death, and the after-death. In News of the Phoenix, and Other Poems, his most significant collection, Smith remains true to his heritage. Using language that mimics the austerity of the Canadian landscape even as it captures its vitality of spirit, his poetry evokes simplicity in form, complexity in thought.
Smith received two fellowships: a Guggenheim (1941-1943) and a Rockefeller (1944-1946). News of the Phoenix merited the Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry in 1943. In 1966 he received the Lorne Pierce Gold Medal for Literature from the Royal Society of Canada. The Canadian Government awarded Smith the Centennial Medal in 1967, and he received the Canada Council Medal in 1968.
Critics in his native Canada are divided about Smith’s legacy. Some herald him as a forward-thinking modernist, while others deride his focus on regional heritage as pandering to an obsolete nationalism. A few charge his poetry with fostering nostalgia for colonialism. Ironically, the poet who broke ground by including all poets of worth in his edited volumes is now the subject of debate about whether his poems merit a place in current Canadian anthologies.