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William Bliss Carman
(1861 - 1929) Canada - U. S. A.

William Bliss Carman

Poet

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Carman was born in Fredricton, New Brunswick. He was, at the time, Canada's best-known poet. Descended from American Loyalists, he attended the University of New Brunswick, Edinburgh and Harvard. He later moved to New York and was influential as an editor and writer for the Independent, the Cosmopolitan, the Atlantic Monthly, the Chap Book and other literary journals.

He is also well known for his anthology and editing work on The World's Best Poetry (10 vol.'s; 1904) and The Oxford book of American verse (1927). In 1928 he was awarded the Lorne Pierce Gold Medal by the Royal Society of Canada.

After 1888 made his home in New York and Connecticut. He published his first notable poetry in Low Tide on Grand Pré: A Book of Lyrics (1893), whose youthful buoyancy and pagan love of nature won it immediate success.

In collaboraton with Richard Hovey he wrote Songs from Vagabondia (1894), which, being marked by carefree gypsy spirit, helped to initiate a revolt against the scholarly and anemic poetry of the Time. The collaboration was continued in More Songs from Vagabondia (1896) and Last Songs from Vagabondia (1901).

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