John Sutherland (21 February 1919 – 1 September 1956) was a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

poet,

literary critic A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature' ...

, and magazine editor based in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

. W. H. New, ed. ''Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada.'' Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002: 1079-80. . Although he published numerous poems of his own, he was perhaps better known as the founder and

editor Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, organization, a ...

of two important Canadian literary magazines, '' First Statement'' and ''

Northern Review ''Northern Review'' was a Montreal-based literary magazine published in Canada between 1945 and 1956. It resulted from the merger between two earlier magazines, '' Preview'' and '' First Statement'', both of which were also Montreal-based. Poet an ...

''. He was the half-brother of actor

Donald Sutherland Donald McNichol Sutherland (17 July 1935 – 20 June 2024) was a Canadian actor. With a career spanning six decades, he received List of awards and nominations received by Donald Sutherland, numerous accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award ...

and brother of the painter and poet Betty Sutherland (Boschka Layton, wife of poet

Irving Layton Irving Peter Layton, OC (March 12, 1912 – January 4, 2006) was a Romanian-born Canadian poet. He was known for his "tell it like it is" style which won him a wide following but also made him enemies. As T. Jacobs notes in his biography (2001 ...

). Before his death from

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...

, Sutherland also published the

anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs, or related fiction/non-fiction excerpts by different authors. There are also thematic and g ...

''Other Canadians: An Anthology of New Poetry in Canada, 1940–46'', a collection of Canadian

modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

poetry, and one of the first critical studies of the poetry of E. J. Pratt. Sutherland was also instrumental in exposing the poetry of

to a wider audience, thanks to the Sutherland-owned First Statement Press, the

small press A small press is a publisher with annual sales below a certain level or below a certain number of titles published. The terms "indie publisher" and "independent press" and others are sometimes used interchangeably. However, when a distinction ...

that issued Layton's first book, ''Here and Now''. In 1943, Sutherland published a review of Patrick Anderson's poetry in ''First Statement'' which suggested

homoerotic Homoeroticism is sexual attraction between members of the same sex, including both male–male and female–female attraction. The concept differs from the concept of homosexuality: it refers specifically to the desire itself, which can be tempor ...

themes in his writing, and accusing Anderson of "some sexual experience of a kind not normal"; although Anderson would in fact come out as

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late ...

later in life, he was married at the time to Peggy Doernbach, and threatened to sue. John Barton and Billeh Nickerson, eds. ''Seminal: The Anthology of Canada's Gay Male Poets''. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2007. . Sutherland printed a retraction in the following issue.John Sutherland, "Retraction". ''First Statement'', 1.20 (1943): cover. The incident was little known outside of Montreal at the time, as both ''First Statement'' and Anderson's rival magazine ''Preview'' had small, primarily local circulations, although it would come to be more extensively analyzed in the 1990s as an important incident in the history of

LGBT literature LGBTQ literature may refer to: * Lesbian literature * Gay literature * Bisexual literature * Transgender literature * Intersex literature * Or any other literature featuring the LGBTQ community By country * LGBTQ literature in Argentina * ...

in Canada. Sutherland would also come to be known for an apparent feud with poet A. J. M. Smith, with ''Other Canadians'' being perceived as a direct riposte to Smith's anthology ''The Book of Canadian Poetry''.

References

1919 births 1956 deaths 20th-century Canadian poets Canadian male poets Canadian literary critics Poets from Montreal Canadian magazine editors 20th-century Canadian male writers Canadian male non-fiction writers Deaths from cancer in Canada {{Canada-poet-stub