Contact | The Canadian Encyclopedia

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Contact

Contact (1952-54) was a mimeographed "little magazine" of poetry, the third journal founded by Toronto poet Raymond SOUSTER. Its predecessors were Direction (1943-46) and Enterprise (1948).

Contact

Contact (1952-54) was a mimeographed "little magazine" of poetry, the third journal founded by Toronto poet Raymond SOUSTER. Its predecessors were Direction (1943-46) and Enterprise (1948). It came into existence as an alternative to John SUTHERLAND's NORTHERN REVIEW, which assumed a traditional direction after Sutherland's conversion to Roman Catholicism; Souster, with his close associates Louis DUDEK and Irving LAYTON, felt that a more experimental magazine was needed. Contact was open to young Canadian writers, but also published American and European poets such as Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Denise Levertov and Jean Cocteau. Contact's influence was carried on by CONTACT PRESS (1952-67).