John Newlove
First appeared in FreeLance, Saskatchewan Writers' Guild, April, 2004
By Gary Hyland

I seem to be forgetting what words sound like.
Soon I shall be reduced to a tiny vocabulary
of phrases
such as I love you,
or I hate you,
or death.
- “57th Birthday,” 1995


In April of 1968, Maclean’s published two pages containing eight poems 
from a book by John Newlove. Not unusual, except in those days the 
magazine was a tabloid-sized monthly which never published poetry. John, 
thirty at the time, was hailed as a new voice deserving of this singular 
exception because he was a rarity— a talented poet the masses could 
understand, one who would move them deeply. And that he was. And that he 
remains.

I purchased his book and was thrilled to read, for the first time, 
powerful poetry rooted in this place. It dazzled me so much I wanted to 
meet the author. Several years later I did. It was at a party at the home 
of Patrick Lane and Lorna Crozier, and, yes, John was drunk, as he was all 
but one of the times I met him. And still the powerful poetry continued. 
Fabulous books full of gentle irony, self-deprecation, wry humour, and 
seemingly uncontrived grandeur. He was a fine craftsman, always trimming 
in search of the flawless poem. His genius was evident in the seamless way 
he blended the documentary, lyric and narrative modes. He resisted 
clichés, casual comparisons, easy answers. Tremendous struggles were 
implied in the simplicity of his pieces.

The occasion I judged John to be mostly sober was when he delivered the 
Caroline Heath Lecture for the Saskatchewan Writers Guild in 1989, yet 
another time he influenced me. It was one of the finest talks I have ever 
heard. It was about the struggle of being a poet and a person, and it 
featured the ambiguity, pain and honesty that was central to his writing.

In the mid 80s, when Lorna Crozier and I were assembling the poems for A 
Sudden Radiance, I reread the dozen or so books John had published to that 
point and was impressed by how many of the lines were in my memory. I was 
also astonished to discover how much he had influenced my writing. I 
suspected we were going to have trouble confining John’s section to the 
allotted number of pages. It was one of our greatest challenges.

John had agreed to be one of the presenters at the 2001 Saskatchewan 
Festival of Words. He sounded pleased to be invited and sent me twenty or 
so pages of new poems, showing he hadn’t lost his touch. But he suffered a 
stroke and never made it. This year the Festival will honour him with a 
tribute luncheon on Friday July 23.
In his Caroline Heath lecture John said, “Death is unacceptable and 
inevitable.” He also said he wanted to “make things that would last” and 
wished he had found an art form that would have permitted him that 
success. He did.