SMITH, A(RTHUR) J(AMES) M(ARSHALL)

born Nov. 8, 1902, Montreal died Nov. 21, 1980, East Lansing, Mich. Canadian poet, anthologist, and critic who was a leader in the revival of Canadian poetry of the 1920s. As an undergraduate at McGill University in Montreal, Smith founded and edited the McGill Fortnightly Review (192527), the first literary magazine dedicated to freeing Canadian literature from its narrow provincialism. He encouraged other young Canadian writers to become cosmopolitan in their outlook and to set high literary standards. After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh in 1932, he taught in the United States, mainly at Michigan State University (193672). He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1941. In a series of anthologies beginning with The Book of Canadian Poetry (1943), Smith approached Canadian literature in a scholarly manner that set the tone for modern Canadian criticism. Later anthologies include The Blasted Pine (1957), a collection of Canadian satiric and invective verse, Modern Canadian Verse in English and French (1967), and The Colonial Century: English-Canadian Writing Before Confederation (1973). In his own poetry, collected in volumes such as News of the Phoenix (1943), Collected Poems (1962), and Poems: New and Collected (1967), Smith displayed careful craftsmanship.