Brian Bartlett

Brian Bartlett. Courtesy St. Mary's University.

Brian Bartlett (born October 1, 1953) is a Canadian poet, editor, and academic.

Life

Youth and education

Bartlestt was born in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, the 3rd of 6 children of Marjorie (Wills) and Lester Bartlett. In 1957 he moved with his parents to Fredericton, where Lester worked as a high school science teacher (and subsequently with the New Brunswick Department of Education as the director of curriculum).

He attended public school in Fredericton, moving between Albert Street School, Connaught Street School, and Montgomery Street School during his primary years. As a child, he enjoyed reading, writing, bird watching, studying nature, and playing baseball and hockey. For secondary education, he attended Albert Street Junior High School and then Fredericton High School.

Bartlett earned a Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of New Brunswick where he studied under Fred Cogswell ( who called his work “kaleidoscopic”) and a M.A. (qtd. in Compton 139). Cogswell’s sentiments were later echoed by Clark Blaise at Concordia University in Montreal, where he studied under Clark Blaise. He then earned a Ph.D. from the Université de Montréal, where he wrote a thesis on the work of A.R. Ammons.

Career

After graduating, Bartlett lived in Montreal for 15 years while teaching at Concordia. In 1990, he moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia to teach English at St. Mary’s University.

Writing

Bartlett is inspired by Don McKay, P.K. Page, Don Coles, and Don Domanski, whom he calls his favorite Canadian poets, while New Brunswick poets Alfred Bailey, Alden Nowlan, Robert Gibbs, William Bauer, and M. Travis Lane all made an impact on him in his youth.

Recognition

Bartlett's collection Wanting the Day: Selected poems was awarded the 2004 Atlantic Poetry Prize.

The Watchmaker's Table was honored with the 2009 Acorn-Plantos Award for People's Poetry.

Other awards Bartlett has won include the 2000 Petra Kenney Poetry Award, the 1991 and 1998 Malahat Review Long Poem Prize, a 1996 Hawthorndon Castle International Writers’ Fellowship, and a 1993 Banff Writers’ Studio Scholarship.

Publications

Poetry

• Finches for the Wake. Fredericton, NB: Fiddlehead Poetry Books, 1971.
• Brother’s Insomnia. Fredericton, NB: New Brunswick Chapbooks, 1972.
• Cattail Week. Montreal: Villeneuve, 1981.
• Planet Harbour. Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane Editions, 1989.
• Underwater Carpentry. Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane Editions, 1993.
• Granite Erratics. Victoria, BC: Ekstasis, 1997.
• The Afterlife of Trees. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2002.
• Wanting the Day: Selected poems. Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane Editions, 2003.
• Travels of the Watch. Kentville, NS: Gaspereau Press, 2004.
• The Watchmaker’s Table. Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane Editions, 2008.
• Being Charlie. North Vancouver, BC: Alfred Gustav Press, 2009.
• Potato Blossom Road: Seven montages. Victoria, BC: Ekstasis, 2013.
• Ringing Here and There: A nature calendar. Markham ON: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2014.
• The Child Alone. Victoria, BC: Frog Hollow Press, 2015.
• Branches over Ripples: A waterside journal. Kentville, NS: Gaspereau Press, 2017.
• All Manner of Tackle: Living with poetry. Windsor, ON: Palimpsest Press, 2017.
• Keatonesque. Kingston, ON: Thee Hellbox Press, 2017.

Edited

• Don McKay: Essays on his works. Toronto, ON: Guernica, 2006.
• Don Domanski Earthly Pages: The poetry of Don Domanski. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2007.
• James Reaney, The Essential James Reaney. Erin, ON: Porcupine’s Quill, 2009.
• Dorothy Roberts, The Essential Dorothy Roberts. Erin, ON: Porcupine’s Quill, 2018.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of Canadian poets

External links

Books

• Brian Bartlett at Amazon.com

About

• Brian Bartlett in the Atlantic Canadian Poets' Archive
• Brian Bartlett in the Encyclopedia of New Brunswick