h3. Philip Child: WWI Poet and University of Toronto Scholar
p. *Rediscovered by Chris Jennings, who, like Child, once worked for the University of Toronto Quarterly*
!))<https://arcpoetry.ca/images/fn_poets/philip_child.gif 160w 215h (Philip Child 1898-1978 , a rediscovered Canadian poet)!
p. Arguably the best-known of Canadian poems written about the experience of World War I, “In Flanders Fields” by John McRae is a poem that isn’t much praised for its techniques or the subtlety of its themes. Philip Child shares McRae’s claim to immediate experience of the war; more, he saw what McRae didn’t: the way war fostered a culture of modernity and a modern literature. Both technically and thematically, Child’s poetry tries to harmonize a life segmented by experiences before, during, and after the war. An award-winning novelist before he turned from fiction to poetry, Child wrote two books of poems that fascinate as a highly intelligent, highly literate veteran’s attempt to make sense of an experience that few living voices still share.
h4. About Essayist Chris Jennings
p. Chris Jennings teaches English Literature at the University of Ottawa and has written on poets as diverse as Pindar, Alexander Pope, and Steve McCaffrey for both academic and literary journals. Like Philip Child, he was educated in part at the University of Toronto and served as an editor for the [_University of Toronto Quarterly_]. He has also been a research associate on [_Representative Poetry On-Line_] and [_The Collected Works of Northrop Frye_]. Originally from Calgary, Chris was one of the founding editors of _filling Station_ magazine. His poems have received honourable mentions for both [_Arc Poetry Magazine_]’s “Poem of the Year” contest and the [_Fiddlehead_]’s “Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize.” His first collection, the chapbook, [_Vacancies_], was published by Toronto’s believe your own press in 2003.