William Wrighton Eustace Ross
son Eustace Ross">ften misspelt William Wrightson Eustace Ross(June 14, 1894 – August 26, 1966) was a Canadian
geophysicist
Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. The term ''geophysics'' som ...
and
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...
. He was the first published poet in Canada to write
Imagist poetry, and later the first to write
surrealist verse, both of which have led some to call him "the first modern
Canadian poet."
[Irrealities, Laconics & Sonnets]
" Exile Quarterly, Spring 2011.
Life
Ross was born on 14 June 1894 in
Peterborough, Ontario
Peterborough ( ) is a city on the Otonabee River in Ontario, Canada, about 125 kilometres (78 miles) northeast of Toronto. According to the 2021 Census, the population of the City of Peterborough was 83,651. The population of the Peterborough ...
, to Ralph and Ella Louise Ross (née Wrighton). He grew up in
Pembroke, Ontario
Pembroke is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario at the confluence of the Muskrat River (Ontario), Muskrat River and the Ottawa River in the Ottawa Valley. Pembroke is the location of the administrative headquarters of Renfrew County, thoug ...
.
[W.W.E. Ross Biography]
" ''Dictionary of Literary Biography'', BookRags.com, Web, April 8, 2011. He studied
geophysics
Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. The term ''geophysics'' som ...
at the
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...
, supporting his studies with summer work on
geological survey
A geological survey is the systematic investigation of the geology beneath a given piece of ground for the purpose of creating a geological map or model. Geological surveying employs techniques from the traditional walk-over survey, studying outc ...
s in
Northern Ontario
Northern Ontario is a primary geographic and quasi-administrative region of the Canadian province of Ontario, the other primary region being Southern Ontario. Most of the core geographic region is located on part of the Superior Geological Provi ...
.
[Brian Trehearne,]
W.W.E. Ross 1894–1966
" ''Canadian Poetry 1920 to 1960'' (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart'', 2010), 74, Google Books, Web, April 8, 2011
Ross served with the
Canadian Expeditionary Force
The Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) was the expeditionary field force of Canada during the First World War. It was formed following Britain’s declaration of war on Germany on 15 August 1914, with an initial strength of one infantry division ...
in
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
as a private in the
signal corps.
[ On his return, he worked until his retirement as a ]geophysicist
Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. The term ''geophysics'' som ...
at the Dominion Magnetic Observatory at Agincourt, Ontario
Agincourt () is a neighbourhood and former village in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Agincourt is located in northeast Toronto, along Sheppard Avenue between Kennedy and Markham Roads (north-south includes lands between Highway 401 and Finch Avenue). ...
(now part of Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
).[ He married Mary Evelyn Lowrey on 3 June 1924 who was "the well-known journalist."][ They had two children, Mary Loretto and Nancy Helen. The family lived at 62 Delaware Ave. in Toronto, Ontario. This house had been the family home of Mary Lowrey prior to her marriage to Ross][Campbell, Sandra and McMullen, Lorraine, eds., ''New Women: Short Stories by Canadian Women, 1900–1920'' (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1997) 307.] Ross was to live in this house for the rest of his life.[
Ross began writing poetry in or around 1923. His earliest works "are written in free verse and reflect a knowledge of both imagism and ]Japanese poetry
Japanese poetry is poetry typical of Japan, or written, spoken, or chanted in the Japanese language, which includes Old Japanese, Early Middle Japanese, Late Middle Japanese, and Modern Japanese, as well as poetry in Japan which was written in t ...
."[ In 1925, Ross developed the 'laconic' as a distinctly Canadian verse form, "one that would be 'native' and yet not ' free verse,' one that would be unrhymed and yet definitely a ']form
Form is the shape, visual appearance, or configuration of an object. In a wider sense, the form is the way something happens.
Form also refers to:
*Form (document), a document (printed or electronic) with spaces in which to write or enter data
...
.'"[Allan Mortifee]
Introduction to "Letters of Gustafson and Ross,"
''Canadian Poetry: Documents/Studies/Reviews,'' No. 17 (Fall/Winter, 1985 ), Canadian Poetry, UWO, Web, April 8, 2011.
One night in April 1928, after an evening's discussion of Canadian nationalism
Canadian nationalism seeks to promote the unity, independence, and well-being of Canada and the Canadian people. Canadian nationalism has been a significant political force since the 19th century and has typically manifested itself as seeking t ...
among friends, Ross wrote "practically all" of his most famous work, "North." "It never 'clicked' so well before or since as that night in 1928," he later wrote.[ "North" was a series of laconics based on Ross's memories of his summers in Northern Ontario years earlier. Ross submitted some of its poems to ]Harriet Monroe
Harriet Monroe (December 23, 1860 – September 26, 1936) was an American editor, scholar, literary critic, poet, and patron of the arts. She was the founding publisher and long-time editor of ''Poetry'' magazine, first published in 1912. As a ...
's Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
magazine ''Poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
'' and to Marianne Moore's magazine '' The Dial'', and was published in both.[
In 1930, Ross published a book of ''Laconics,'' privately and only under the initials 'E.R.'. ("North" was the first section of the book.) Ross mailed his own review copies to periodicals that he respected.][ He received "an admiring review by Marianne Moore (''Poetry'' 35, 1931)".
Ross's next book, in 1932, was a volume of ''Sonnets''. It was meant as a companion volume to ''Laconics'', the subject matter of the sonnets "mirroring the subject matter and imagery of the modernist poems" in the earlier book.][ Once again, the book was published privately, and signed only 'E.R.'.][ "After ''Sonnets'', a work that he considered a failed book, Ross's disdain for publication increased."][
In the 1930s Ross translated work by the surrealist ]Max Jacob
Max Jacob (; 12 July 1876 – 5 March 1944) was a French poet, painter, writer, and critic.
Life and career
After spending his childhood in Quimper, Brittany, he enrolled in the Paris Colonial School, which he left in 1897 for an artistic ca ...
. He also wrote prose poems
Prose poetry is poetry written in prose form instead of verse form, while preserving poetic qualities such as heightened imagery, parataxis, and emotional effects.
Characteristics
Prose poetry is written as prose, without the line breaks associ ...
influenced by Jacob and Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ...
, some of which were published in '' New Directions in Prose & Poetry for 1937''. "His work in this period incorporates elements of automatic writing, transcendentalism, mysticism, and archetypal imagery."[ The above were the first published prose poems written in Canada.][
Ralph Gustafson included Ross's work in his 1942 ''Anthology of Canadian Verse'', bringing his works before a large reading public in Canada for the first time.][ By then, though, Ross had ceased to write new poetry. Through the next two decades he "revised and polished poems begun much earlier and experimented with some new poetry." He "confined his often brilliant verse-parodies to his letters and with the exception of Margaret Avison generally disliked the younger poets beginning to publish in the 'fifties.][
In 1944, Ross wrote an article in the ''Canadian Forum'', "On Canadian Poetry," as part of the ongoing ]nationalist
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
/cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan may refer to:
Food and drink
* Cosmopolitan (cocktail), also known as a "Cosmo"
History
* Rootless cosmopolitan, a Soviet derogatory epithet during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1949–1953
Hotels and resorts
* Cosmopoli ...
debate, calling for a poetry that is "distinctly located" in a geographic "locale."[
Ross contributed poems "sporadically to literary periodicals and anthologies until his death in 1966. Most of what he published after 1930 was solicited by anthologists or magazine editors. Critic ]Barry Callaghan
Barry Morley Joseph Callaghan (born July 5, 1937) is a Canadians, Canadian author, poet and anthologist. He is currently the editor-in-chief of ''Exile'' Quarterly.
Born in Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, he is the son of late Canadian novelist and ...
suggests that Ross wrote 'only when strenuously urged by an anthologist or literature student.'"[ Urging by poet ]Raymond Souster
Raymond Holmes Souster (January 15, 1921 – October 19, 2012) was a Canadian poet whose writing career spanned over 70 years. More than 50 volumes of his own poetry were published during his lifetime, and he edited or co-edited a dozen volumes ...
resulted in previously unpublished poetry in the mimeographed
A mimeograph machine (often abbreviated to mimeo, sometimes called a stencil duplicator) is a low-cost duplicating machine that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. The process is called mimeography, and a copy made by the proce ...
collection ''Experiment 1923–29'', published in 1956 by Souster's Contact Press, at which time Ross began to be recognized as Canada's first Imagist poet. However, "Ross felt this collection misrepresented him in its emphasis on his imagist work."[ Later encouragement by Callaghan led to Ross's composing new poetry included in the posthumously published ''Shapes and Sounds'' (1968). ''Shapes and sounds'' is a selection of Ross's poems edited by Souster and ]John Robert Colombo
John Robert Colombo, CM (born March 24, 1936) is a Canadian author, editor, and poet. He has published over 200 titles, including major anthologies and reference works.
Early life
Colombo was born in Kitchener, Ontario, in 1936. He attended ...
, with a memoir by Callaghan.[
Ross died due to ]cancer
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...
in 1966.[
]
Writing
"Though never widely read outside academic circles ... Ross had clearly thought out his attitudes toward poetry early on and diverged little from his initial position."[A.R. Kizuk,]
Canadian Poetry in the 'Twenties: Dialectics and Prophecy in W W E. Ross's ''Laconics'' and ''Sonnets''
" ''Canadian Poetry: Documents/Studies/Reviews'' No. 18 (Spring/Summer, 1986), UWO, Web, April 8, 2011 "He objected to both difficult and ornate verse and found the conventional romanticism
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
of Canada's Confederation poets ''Confederation Poets'' is the name given to a group of Canadian poets born in the decade of Canada's Confederation (the 1860s) who rose to prominence in Canada in the late 1880s and 1890s. The term was coined by Canadian professor and literary cr ...
particularly unappealing."[ He "was disapprovingly detached from what was happening in Canadian poetry in general and disliked ]Pratt
Pratt is an English surname. Notable people with the surname include:
A–F
* Abner Pratt (1801–1863), American diplomat, jurist, politician, lawyer
* Al Pratt (baseball) (1847–1937), American baseball player
* Andy Pratt (baseball) (bor ...
's 'pretty expert word-juggling and rhyming' in particular.... He felt more enthusiastic about poems by Pickthall, Knister and Patrick Anderson than Pratt, and Tom MacInnes
Thomas Robert Edward MacInnes (né McInnes) (October 29, 1867 – February 11, 1951) was a Canadian poet and writer whose writings ranged from "vigorous, slangy recollections of the Yukon gold rush" (''Lonesome Bar,'' 1909) to "a translation ...
'quite hypnotized' him."[ His chief ]American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
influences were E.E. Cummings
Edward Estlin Cummings, who was also known as E. E. Cummings, e. e. cummings and e e cummings (October 14, 1894 - September 3, 1962), was an American poet, painter, essayist, author and playwright. He wrote approximately 2,900 poems, two autobi ...
and Marianne Moore.[
Ross distrusted the ]cosmopolitanism
Cosmopolitanism is the idea that all human beings are members of a single community. Its adherents are known as cosmopolitan or cosmopolite. Cosmopolitanism is both prescriptive and aspirational, believing humans can and should be " world citizens ...
of the Montreal Group The Montreal Group, sometimes referred to as the McGill Group or McGill Movement,Dean Irvine,Montreal Group" ''Oxford Companion to Canadian History''. Answers.com, Web, March 25, 2011. was a circle of Canadian modernist writers formed in the mid-19 ...
. In "On Australian Poetry" he "wrote that a poet is inevitably associated with a place and that the cosmopolitan doctrine as espoused by Smith was not tenable. 'I have a horrid suspicion,' he said, 'that the "Cosmopolis" will turn out to be not "world city" in general but one of London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, rParis
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
.'"
''Laconics''
His first book,''Laconics,'' "ratified Ross's claim as an innovative poetic craftsman by establishing an aesthetic bridgehead on the modern world, and the conditions under which poetry could be written in order to be reconciled with the modern world."[ It "collects the imagist poems Ross is best known for:"
"The Fish," "The Diver," "The Dawn; the Birds," "The Snake Trying," "Glue ," "The Creek," "The Wall": mostly, the poems of "North" that he had written that one night in April 1928.
"In Ross's spare, ... narrow poems, the inquiring spirit of the ]New World
The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...
seeks release from old sentiments, customs, and poetic conventions.... Ross seeks 'something of the sharper tang of Canada' in the surface reflections and dark shadows of pine-surrounded lakes, where reality is recognized as profound and mysterious. The modern poet of the New World seeks illumination by objectifying the ordinary sensations of sight and sound. His explorations of the land of lake and loon thereby serve as metaphors for illumination and rejuvenation."
"In an early draft for his 'Introduction' to ''The Penguin Book of Canadian Verse'' (1958), Ralph Gustafson explained what these poems meant to him: 'A modern awareness, with its concomitant experimentation with technique, a reduction of Canada, of the quality of Canada, were entering into Canadian verse. W.W.E. Ross' "northern" poems were written almost entirely in one night in April 1928 ... They captured precisely, with wonder and freshness, a distinct Canada."["Letters of Gustafson and Ross," Canadian Poetry: Studies/Documents/Reviews,'' No. 17 (Fall/Winter, 1985), Canadian Poetry, UWO, Web, April 8, 2011.]
It has been said that the poems of "North" "present the northern Ontario landscape in the stark manner of the Group of Seven. His strongest work is undoubtedly this early imagist-oriented poetry, work that derives its strengths from his restrained, skeptical personality, from his scientist's preference for objective, factual material, and from his affection for the Canadian wilderness landscape." This is poetry which, as he wrote in 'On National Poetry' (''Canadian Forum'', 1944), is 'distinctly located' in a geographic 'locale.'[
]
''Sonnets''
"Exhilarated by the knowledge that he had succeeded" in ''Laconics'' — "a knowledge that came to him from inner self-realization rather than popular success" — Ross next "turned his new-found strength, in ''Sonnets'', to the conditions under which poetry had been written in the past. His purpose was ... to reduce tradition to the structures of the method that had tested out in ''Laconics''."[
The book "reveals a lesser-known side of Ross — the classicist and traditional metricist concerned not only with factual reality but also with spiritual truth."][ ''Sonnets'' was meant to be more overtly philosophical than ''Laconics'' — which Ross thought would be better suited by the traditional form's longer lines — but ultimately he considered the book an experiment that failed:
:The general idea was to employ the 'clean' language of free verse without the lack of rhythm or pattern which offended me in all the latter except some of ]Pound
Pound or Pounds may refer to:
Units
* Pound (currency), a unit of currency
* Pound sterling, the official currency of the United Kingdom
* Pound (mass), a unit of mass
* Pound (force), a unit of force
* Rail pound, in rail profile
Symbols
* Po ...
etc. As regards ''Sonnets'' I had the notion that longer lines were needed to express ideas adequately and the sonnet form seemed suited to this purpose. I was ditched by my inability to carry over into them — the prestige of the models being so great — the aforesaid 'cleanness.'[
]
Legacy
"Ross's private and somewhat trenchant nature, together with his diffidence toward publishing and the publicly lived literary life, caused him to be little known during his lifetime except to fellow poets."[ He "was never fully accepted into the company of the 'moderns' — Livesay, Smith, Gustafson and so forth — because unlike them he was not interested in propagating the future any more than he was interested in perpetuating the past.... Ross was well-read in Canadian, European and American poetry, yet he cut his own work free from any direction that this reading might have suggested for his verse. His poetry is unique in its timelessness."][
"Ross's writing became of special importance in the 1950s and 1960s when new generations of Canadian poets sought their precursors in the modernist goals of restraint, precision, organic rhythm, and the factual image."][
]
Publications
* ''Laconics'' (by E.R.) 1930.[
* ''Sonnets'' (by E.R.) 1932.][
* ''Experiment, 1923–1929''. Toronto: Contact Press, 1956.][Search results: W.W.E. Ross, Open Library, Web, May 9, 2011.]
*
Shapes & sounds: poems of W. W. E. Ross
' (with a portrait by Dennis Burton, a memoir by Barry Callaghan, and an editorial note by Raymond Souster and John Robert Colombo). (Toronto: Longman's 1968)[
* ''Irrealities, Sonnets & Laconics''. (Exile Editions, 2003)][W.W.E. Ross, '']
Irrealities, Sonnets & Laconics
'. (Exile Editions, 2003), Google Books, Web, April 8, 2011.
Anthologized poems
* "The Diver," "If Ice," "The Snake Trying," ''The New Oxford Book of Canadian Verse in English.'' Ed. Margaret Atwood
Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of non-fiction, nin ...
. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1983.[Margaret Atwood ed. ''The New Oxford Book of Canadian Verse in English.'' (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1983), 87–88.]
References
External links
Ross Family archival papers
held at th
University of Toronto Archives and Records Management Services
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ross, W.W.E.
1894 births
1966 deaths
20th-century Canadian poets
20th-century Canadian geologists
Canadian geophysicists
Canadian modernist poets
Canadian World War I poets
20th-century Canadian male writers
Canadian male poets
Writers from Ontario
Sonneteers
Canadian Expeditionary Force soldiers
Deaths from cancer in Canada