Gregory Betts

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Gregory Betts
Gregorybetts2.jpg
Born1975 (age 4950)
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
OccupationPoet, Professor, Editor
NationalityCanadian
Alma materQueen’s University, York University
SubjectAvant-Garde Literature
Website
gregorybetts.wordpress.com

Gregory Betts (born 1975) is a Canadian scholar, poet, editor and professor. [1] [2]

Contents

He has taught at University of Toronto, Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, Brock University, and University College Dublin. He is currently a professor at Brock University with a speciality in Canadian and avant-garde literature. [2] [3] [4] [5] He is the author of nine books of poetry, [2] editor of nine books of experimental writing in Canada, and author of the monograph Avant-Garde Canadian Literature: The Early Manifestations (University of Toronto Press, 2013) and the monograph Finding Nothing: The VanGardes, 1959-1975 (University of Toronto Press, 2021). [6] He was named the Chancellor's Chair for Research Excellence at Brock University in 2014 [7] and the Craig Dobbin Professor of Canadian Studies at University College Dublin in 2018. In 2020, he became the President of the Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English, the largest literary association for the study of English in Canada. [8]

Life and work

Betts was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, but was raised in Toronto, Ontario. [9] He graduated from Queen's University with a BA in English in 1998. He studied with Stephen Scobie, Misao Dean, Smaro Kamboureli, and George Bowering at the University of Victoria, where he graduated with an MA in 2000. Betts received his PhD in English literature from York University, supervised by John Lennox, Steve McCaffery, and Ray Ellenwood. He is a professor at Brock University [2] with a speciality in Canadian and Avant-Garde Literature. [3] [10] [5] He is the author of seven books of poetry, [2] editor of nine books of experimental writing in Canada, and author of the monograph Avant-Garde Canadian Literature: The Early Manifestations (University of Toronto Press, 2013). [6] [9] He writes for The Canadian Encyclopaedia and his work is included in the anthologies Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing [2] (2011), The Sonnets: Translating & Rewriting Shakespeare (2012), [11] and Concrete & Constraint (2018), amongst others. [12] [13] In addition to his books, Betts is the author of chapbooks and text collaborations with visual artists, including Matt Donovan and Hallie Siegel, Neil Hennessy, and Arnold McBay. [14] [15] He co-edited the collection Avant Canada: Poets, Prophets, Revolutionaries (with Christian Bök; Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2019), a collection of 28 leading scholars and poets of the Canadian avant-garde.

Betts published his first book of poetry, If Language, in 2005. The book consists of fifty-six anagrams based on a 525-letter source quote by Canadian poet and scholar Steve McCaffery. In 2009 he published The Others Raisd in Me: 150 Readings of Sonnet 150; A Plunderverse Project. The collection of poems was accomplished by deleting words or letters from William Shakespeare's Sonnet 150 in order to create adapted works of poetry.

Betts edited the collection The Wrong World: Selected Stories and Essays of Bertram Brooker in 2009. The book highlights how Canadian visual artist Bertram Brooker played a significant role in the Canadian literary modernist movement. Through essays, short fiction, and a novella, Betts displays Brooker's views on culture, technology, and society as well as his hesitations with modernism. Writing in the British Journal of Canadian Studies, Anouk Lang suggested that "the short fiction and the essays would lend themselves well to courses on modernism, both in the context of Canadian literature and modernism considered more globally, while the volume as a whole will be of interest to scholars of twentieth-century thought and literature." [16]

Betts also published This Is Importance: A Student's Guide to Literature in 2013. The book compiles errors from years of mistakes by his students and organizes them to create a poetic collage. Betts pushes the importance of making mistakes as part of the learning experience and also for opening a window to new possibilities.[ citation needed ] Reviewing the book in This, Jonathan Ball observed that Betts's arrangement of the content helps to "produce strange, brilliant, unintentional wordplay, with accidentally clever insights that are often laugh-out-loud funny."[ citation needed ]

He lives in St. Catharines, Ontario with his wife and two children, Jasper John and Mackenzie Rose Betts. [1] [6]

Reception

The University of Toronto Quarterly wrote, "Betts has created not only an invaluable archive of what it means to be 'modern' in Canada - the writings read like a cross-section of compacted layers social, material, and spiritual crisis in urban and rural Canada...but to the wider context of aesthetic, political, and spiritual fault lines of modern culture in English Canada." [17] In 2014, Betts was named the Chancellor's Chair for Research Excellence at Brock University. [18] In 2017, he received a City of St. Catharines Arts Award ("Jury's Pick") [19] and in 2018, he was named the Craig Dobbin Professor of Canadian Studies at the University College of Dublin, Ireland.

Finding Nothing: The VanGardes, 1959-1975 received the 2022 Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize for Outstanding Book on British Columbia. [20] Dr. Susan E. Parker, UBC’s University Librarian, said, “The story laid out in this book, which is at once coherent and many-dimensioned, represents a huge volume of research material that has been thoroughly examined and analyzed. The book models what deft handling of complicated subject matter and materials should be. We are pleased to recognize Dr. Betts’ book with the Basil’ Stuart-Stubbs Prize.” [21] The book has also received the 2021 Gabrielle Roy Prize, which each year honours the best work of scholarship on literature produced in Canada written in English. The judges said, "Filled with visual evidence of a vibrant cultural movement, this is a crucial source for those with an interest in late twentieth-century poetry and visual art, the history of small press activity, and the cultural histories of Vancouver." [22]

Works

Poetry books

As editor

Artworks and exhibitions

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Rogal, Stan (April 21, 2010). "Poetry Month: Stan Rogal on Gregory Betts". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved July 10, 2013.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Celebration of poet's life to be held at museum". Niagara Advance Magazine. February 22, 2012. Retrieved July 10, 2013.
  3. 1 2 "Gregory Betts". Vancouver 125 Poetry Conference
  4. Historical Perspectives on Canadian Publishing Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine , "Gregory Betts", McMaster University
  5. 1 2 Gregory Betts, Brock University.
  6. 1 2 3 2 Jacket Magazine "Gregory Betts"
  7. "Gregory Betts receives Chancellor's Chair for Research Excellence".
  8. "Board of Directors > ACCUTE".
  9. 1 2 Gregory Betts, Electronic Poetry Center
  10. "Gbetts | Historical Perspectives on Canadian Publishing". Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved June 12, 2013.
  11. "The Sonnets: Translating & Rewriting Shakespeare (2012)".
  12. "Margaret Christakos", The Canadian Encyclopaedia
  13. "Larissa Lai", The Canadian Encyclopaedia
  14. Gregory Betts, Open Book Toronto.
  15. "Interview with Gregory Betts" Canadian Literature Symposium, 2008
  16. Lang, Anouk (March 22, 2011). "Gregory Betts (ed.), The Wrong World: Selected Stories and Essays of Bertram Brooker". British Journal of Canadian Studies. 24 (1): 108–110.
  17. "The Wrong World: Selected Stories and Essays (review)", University of Toronto Quarterly Volume 80, Number 2, Spring 2011 pp. 316-318
  18. "Gregory Betts receives Chancellor's Chair for Research Excellence". The Brock News, a news source for Brock University. Retrieved January 2, 2021.
  19. City of St. Catharines Arts Award ("Jury's Pick") stcatharines.ca Archived February 15, 2018, at the Wayback Machine
  20. "The Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Book on British Columbia | Support UBC Library".
  21. "Dr. Gregory Betts wins the 2022 Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize for his incisive treatment of a key period in Vancouver's cultural history". March 8, 2022.
  22. "Recipient of the 2021 Gabrielle Roy Prize". May 27, 2022.
  23. Finding Nothing: The VanGardes, 1959-1975 (2021) Gregory Betts University of Toronto Press ISBN   9781487505318
  24. Avant-garde Canadian Literature: The Early Manifestations (2013) Gregory Betts University of Toronto Press ISBN   9781442643772
  25. Smulders, Marilyn (April 29, 2008). "A Canlit champion Prof. Dean Irvine shines light on earlier generation". Dal News. Retrieved July 10, 2013.