I rarely admit to writing poetry when talking to people I’ve just met. Asked what I do for a living during a night out with my wife, I sometimes default to ‘freelance writer,’ or more often than not, leave out writer altogether. Like most poets, I’ve held many temporary jobs over the course of my life, so at any given moment ‘freelance’ is close to the truth. The reality though, is that I cobble together a living writing, editing, publishing, and reviewing poetry—a pursuit that demands almost fanatical commitment. If I can help it, I dedicate my energy to the written word exclusively, though there’s never a time when it feels like a stable job.

All of this is to say that the deferral described above is born of love—I’ve been stuck in too many conversations where I led with ‘poet’ and received blank looks to continue to introduce myself as one. In my early twenties, when I was working towards my MSc in reproductive physiology, these kinds of conversations were easier. Going into detail about my thesis—a project centred around the developmental origins of adult health and disease—would garner blank looks too, but at least these included a grudging respect.

So why bother with poetry? And in particular, why write criticism related to an art associated with ‘dutifulness and dullness’ (as playfully described by Adam Kirsch in a recent issue of The New Criterion)? My answer is that poetry is an irresistible force, a guiding principal for those to whom it matters. From a personal standpoint, it’s one of my primary forms of entertainment, and it’s also one of the fundamental ways in which I interpret the world. Criticism, on the other hand, is a different animal. Even those who enjoy poetry have been known to consider ‘literary criticism’ a pejorative term. Still, I’ve long been convinced that the health of any artistic community can be measured by the state of the critical apparatus surrounding it, and my experience writing about poetry has convinced me of the symbiosis between the two disciplines.

Bait & Switch collects the majority of the essays and reviews I’ve written on Canadian poetry over the past fifteen years. By its very nature the book is a miscellany, a bait-and-switch, but I also like to see it as a collection of moments that combine to comment on what Canadians have been writing in the 21st century, and where we might be headed next. Flip though and you’ll find my take on Karen Solie’s post-Griffin Award winning American debut sitting beside criticism of Christian Bök’s cryptography-based bioengineering experiment, The Xenotext. Dig further and I consider several volumes of selected poetry—a form that’s experienced renewed popularity over the past decade—as well as introductions to the work of poets published in The Porcupine’s Quill’s Essential Poets series, and an essay on collaborative poetry and it’s growing impact in CanLit.

Closer to home, Bait & Switch considers origins, tracking the moments in my life that I came to poetry and editing, respectively, while thinking through the work of Ian Williams and Tolu Oloruntoba. That I count these two writers as friends has been one of the unexpected joys of exchanging my scientific beginnings for a writing life. That life includes time with all of the books explored in the pages to come, each of which I’ve tried to approach with empathy, even if my assessments aren’t always positive. It also includes the continued and constant mystery of the pre-poem moment, something I write about in the closing essay ‘On the Provenance of 9.69.’

Apart from the what and the why, the pieces gathered in Bait & Switch are archival. Their first iterations were published primarily on the internet, and, as such, many have already vanished. I hope that by getting a second life here they draw attention to the poets evoked, reviewed and discussed. I also hope they serve as an example of how poetry can be accessible to those who want to spend time with it. I often hear from readers who feel poetry is beyond their understanding, and assume that a decoder ring is necessary to interpret what’s being written. No such ring is needed. If it were, this book—written by a former academic without literary training—wouldn’t exist. In my opinion, the idea of a poem having a single fixed meaning is antithetical to the reader’s imagination and their freedom to contribute to the poem’s sense.

All of this adds up to make Bait & Switch the book that I’d like to hand to those who ask why I do what I do. As Peter Sanger writes in his introduction to Of Things Unknown: ‘Poetry’s condition is really that of personhood. It has rights and subtle relationships with obligations and responsibilities which may or may not be those of its writer.’ That’s true of all the poetry I enjoy, and can be applied to the type of prose I strive to write as well. Now, I hand these pages off to you.

Jim Johnstone is a Toronto-based poet, editor, and critic. The recipient of a CBC Literary Award and The Fiddlehead’s Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize among others. Johnstone is the author of seven collections of poetry, and the editor of two anthologies. He also curates the Anstruther Books imprint at Palimpsest Press.

Jim Johnstone (Damijan Saccio)

Excerpted from: Bait & Switch: Essays, Reviews, Conversations, and Views on Canadian Poetry by Jim Johnstone. Copyright © 2024 Jim Johnstone. Published by The Porcupine’s Quill. Reproduced by arrangements with the publisher. All rights reserved.

Bait & Switch: Essays, Reviews, Conversations, and Views on Canadian Poetry was published in October.