In Bait & Switch, Jim Johnstone—poet, editor, and erstwhile physiologist—turns his considerable analytic powers to Canadian poetry, presenting a series of essays and reviews exploring the state of Canadian poetry in the 21st century through the lens of a trained scientist.
With characteristic empathy and a researcher’s eye, Johnstone explores a variety of topics, including the legacy of science poetry in Canada, the spark that gives rise to the pre-poem moment, and technology and its attendant opportunities for artistic collaboration. He also considers major works by both prominent and up-and-coming Canadian poets, from Christian Bök and Karen Solie to Nyla Matuk and Michael Prior, and takes a deep dive into career retrospectives by Don McKay, bill bissett, and Carmine Starnino.
But Bait & Switch is far from a cold dissection of contemporary verse; it offers a look into Johnstone’s personal evolution as he opts for a writing life based on the ‘irresistible force’ that is poetry, and gives a behind-the-scenes look at his editorial experience mentoring and promoting Canadian authors.
"Jim Johnstone is a double rarity: at once a stellar poet and a fair, incisive, award-winning critic. Coming to poetry trained as a scientist, convinced that writing essays, reviews and criticism about the art he practices is the measure of a true literary citizen, Johnstone lives inside language at depth. Here you will find his unique combination of clarity and warmth in essays on poets from Karen Solie to Tolu Oloruntoba, on issues of disability and mental health, on Canadian poetics. What links them all together? Johnstone’s calm, personal voice and profound observations. He’s the inheritor of that special brand of North American criticism composed by the likes Eric Ormsby, and further back, Randall Jarrell, ever fascinated by his subjects. His explications of poems are downright beautiful—and always lucid. Although he titles this collection with the clever term Bait & Switch, this splendid book is anything but: it’s straightforward, intelligent, and capacious. Johnstone opens the logic of his judgments in trim, direct sentences that give you the confidence that this poet-critic is always telling the truth."
—Molly Peacock, author of The Analyst and The Second Blush