E.J. Pratt on His Life and Poetry

Susan Gingell is a member of the Department of English at the University of Saskatchewan.

'Pratt ... was possessed of immense good sense about writing. Both his good sense and his good will shine through the book.'

'Wit was always a distinction of Pratt's verse .... After his PhD in Pauline eschatology, Pratt wanted to get Hell out of his system, so he wrote The Witches' Brew, a comic narrative about the effect on alcohol on fish. Literary critics in Great Britain searched for hidden meanings and symbolism, but not finding them, claimed that the book was a libel on the brands and therefore either a temperance pamphlet or an exceedingly obscure advertisement.'

'We make exhilarating contact with the man behind the poems -- warm, generous, ready to take risks -- whose interest in keeping poetry up to date was not by retreat into Art, but by making it communicate the technological age … some of the wording may be old-fashioned, but the sentiments are relevant and valuable. [It] would make an excellent gift for anyone interested in seeing what the pursuit of literature can be: central, enriching, humane.'