Stephen Scobie

Stephen Scobie, poet, critic, professor, publisher (b at Carnoustie, Scot 31 Dec 1943). Typical of his 20 volumes of poetry are The Birken Tree (1973), The Rooms We Are (1974), A Grand Memory for Forgetting (1981) and Expecting Rain (1984), Remains (1990) and Slowly into Autumn (1995). In these, open verse forms with extensive historical and literary references commemorate, sometimes nostalgically, people and places.

McAlmon's Chinese Opera (1980), dramatic monologues in the voice of Robert McAlmon, won Scobie a Governor General's Award. He published a second dramatic monologue in the voice of an historical figure, The Ballad of Isabel Gunn, in 1987. Dunino explores Scobie's Scots childhood through an intertextual invocation of Rilke's Duino Elegies; Scobie is here playing off George Bowering's earlier rewriting of Rilke in his Kerrisdale Elegies. He collaborates with Douglas Barbour in the sound-poetry duo "re:sounding," and co-authored with him "homolinguistic translations" in The Pirates of Pen's Chance (1981). With Barbour and Shirley Neuman he also founded Longspoon Press (1980-87).

He has published 4 critical monographs: Leonard Cohen (1978), What History Teaches (1984, on bp Nichol), Sheila Watson (1984) and Alias Bob Dylan (1991). Some of his numerous essays are collected in Signature Event Cantext (1989). His writing reflects his interest in Gertrude Stein, in cubism, and, recently, in deconstruction. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1995.