News of the phoenix and other poems

Toronto and New York: The Ryerson Press / Coward-McCann, Inc., 1943. First Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine/Very Good. First Edition. Hardcover. FIRST EDITION. Arthur James Marshall (A.J.M.) Smith (1902-1980) was a Canadian-born poet and a member of the group of poets called the Montreal Group (including Leon Edel and F. R. Scott) who brought modernism to a field still influenced by Victorian standards. As an undergraduate at McGill University, in 1921, he wrote for and co-edited the McGill Daily Literary Supplement; as a graduate student, he and F. R. Scott founded the McGill Fortnightly Review, which was the first journal to publish modernist poetry in Canada. In 1936 Smith became a professor at Michigan State College (now Michigan State University) where he taught until retiring in 1972. Smith won the 1943 Governor General's Award for English-language poetry or drama for this, his first collection of poetry, News of the Phoenix and Other Poems. Bound in red paper covered boards with black title to spine and front cover. Evidence of ink erasure on the front free endpaper, otherwise fine. In red dust jacket titled in black on the spine and front panel. The jacket is lightly rubbed and the spine is sunned. 42 pages. POE/101416.