Smith, A. J. M. (1902-1980), was a Canadian poet and scholar. Smith’s precise, often intellectual verse reflects the influence of the English metaphysical poets of the 1600’s. His News of the Phoenix and Other Poems (1943) won the Governor General’s Award. Other collections of his poems are A Sort of Ecstasy: Poems New and Selected (1954) and Poems New and Collected (1967).
As an editor and critic, Smith made important contributions to Canadian literature, especially through The Book of Canadian Poetry: A Critical and Historical Anthology (1943, revised in 1948 and 1957). This work strongly influenced critical attitudes toward Canadian poetry and became a standard college textbook. His essays were collected in Towards a View of Canadian Letters (1973).
Arthur James Marshall Smith was born on Nov. 8, 1902, in Montreal. He died on Nov. 21, 1980.
