Gregory Betts is a Canadian poet, editor and professor. He is a professor at Brock University with a speciality in Canadian and avant-garde literature. He is the author of seven books of poetry, editor of nine books of experimental writing in Canada, and author of the monograph Avant-Garde Canadian Literature: The Early Manifestations. He was named the Chancellor's Chair for Research Excellence at Brock University in 2014 and the Craig Dobbin Professor of Canadian Studies at University College Dublin in 2018.
Life and work
Betts was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, but was raised in Toronto, Ontario. 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 with a speciality in Canadian and Avant-Garde Literature. He is the author of seven books of poetry, editor of nine books of experimental writing in Canada, and author of the monograph Avant-Garde Canadian Literature: The Early Manifestations. He writes for The Canadian Encyclopaedia and his work is included in the anthologies Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing, The Sonnets: Translating & Rewriting Shakespeare, Concrete & Constraint, amongst others. In addition to his books, Betts is the author of chapbooks and text collaborations with visual artists, including Matt Donovan and Hallie Siegel, and Neil Hennessy. His most recent work is the co-edited collection Avant Canada: Poets, Prophets, Revolutionaries, a collection of 28 leading scholars and poets of the Canadian avant-garde. He lives in St. Catharines, Ontario with his wife and two children and directs The Centre for Canadian Studies at Brock University.
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." In 2014, Betts was named the Chancellor's Chair for Research Excellence at Brock University. In 2017, he received a City of St. Catharines Arts Award and in 2018, he was named the Craig Dobbin Professor of Canadian Studies at the University College of Dublin, Ireland.
Editor and Introduction. Space Between Her Lips: The Poetry of Margaret Christakos. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2017.
Co-Editor and Introduction with Paul Hjartarson and Kristine Smitka. Counterblasting Canada: Marshall McLuhan, Wyndham Lewis, Wilfred Watson, and Sheila Watson. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2016.
Co-Editor with Derek Beaulieu. Avant Canada: More Useful Knowledge. An anthology of contemporary Canadian experimental writing. Calgary: NO Press, 2014.
Co-Editor and Afterword with Derek Beaulieu. RUSH: What Fuckan Theory; A Study uv Langwage. By bill bissett. Toronto: BookThug, 2012.
Editor and Introduction. Lawren Harris In the Ward: His Poetry and Painting. Toronto: Exile Editions, 2007. Second edition modified to Contrasts: Lawren Harris In the Ward: A Book of Poetry and Paintings, 2012.
Editor and introduction. After Exile: A Raymond Knister Poetry Reader. Toronto: Exile Editions, 2003. Second edition 2011.
Editor and introduction. The Wrong World: Bertram Brooker’s Stories and Essays. Ottawa: The University of Ottawa Press, 2009.
