John Thompson

John Thompson (17 Mar 1938 – 26 Apr 1976) was an English-born, Canadian poet, translator and university professor. He is noted for his mastery of poetic forms, which he used to express the intensity and power of images in spare and precise language evoking beauty and wonder, anguish and despair. Thompson's second and best-known book, Stilt Jack, a collection of 38 ghazals published after his death, records his poetic journeys through darkness in an uncertain quest for the light. His first collection, At the Edge of the Chopping there are no Secrets published in 1973, conveys vivid images of natural cycles of death and rebirth in the wooded and marshy landscapes of southeastern New Brunswick where an apple tree in late summer is seen as a cauldron of leaves, a charred dancer and a head of burnt hair. Thompson has been described as one of 20th century Canada's most influential poets.