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New Wave Canada
 
  
CONTEMPORARIES
During the sixties, Canadian literature experienced an unprecedented explosion.
Homegrown small presses and literary magazines owned and edited by Canadian writers
nurtured Canadian writing and writers from coast to coast. Those who founded the small
presses were inspired to do so for a variety of reasons including a sense of nationalism or
the lack of response from the commercial presses. Some of them also had evangelical
purposes; they wished to spread the avant-garde word through a network of
mimeographed magazines, offset chapbooks, and, more rarely, finely crafted books and
printed objects.
Of the many such presses founded in Canada during the 1960s, the quintessential small
literary press is The Coach House Press. Coach House was the publisher of almost every
important Canadian poet who came of age in the 1960s. It set important standards for
small press book production and gained wide recognition for innovative designs.
Whether from western, central or eastern Canada, the range of material represented by the
proliferating number of small presses was notable for its variety and inventiveness. These
contributions characterize one of the most dynamic and creative decades in Canadian literature and publishing history: the 1960s.
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