Gregory Betts (born 1975) is a Canadian scholar, poet, editor and professor.
He has taught at University of Toronto, Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, Brock University, and University College Dublin. He is currently a professor at Brock University with a speciality in Canadian and avant-garde literature.<ref name="History Perspectives on Canadian Publishing.">[http://hpcanpub.mcmaster.ca/users/gbetts Historical Perspectives on Canadian Publishing] , "Gregory Betts", McMaster University</ref> He is the author of nine books of poetry, editor of nine books of experimental writing in Canada, and author of the monograph Avant-Garde Canadian Literature: The Early Manifestations (University of Toronto Press, 2013) and the monograph Finding Nothing: The VanGardes, 1959-1975 (University of Toronto Press, 2021). 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. In 2020, he became the President of the Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English, the largest literary association for the study of English in Canada.
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 (University of Toronto Press, 2013).Gregory Betts, Electronic Poetry Center He writes for The Canadian Encyclopaedia and his work is included in the anthologies Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing (2011), The Sonnets: Translating & Rewriting Shakespeare (2012), Concrete & Constraint (2018), amongst others."Larissa Lai", The Canadian Encyclopaedia In addition to his books, Betts is the author of chapbooks and text collaborations with visual artists, including Matt Donovan and Hallie Siegel, Neil Hennessy, and Arnold McBay."Interview with Gregory Betts" Canadian Literature Symposium, 2008 He co-edited collection Avant Canada: Poets, Prophets, Revolutionaries (co-edited with Christian Bök, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2019), 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.
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 ("Jury's Pick") and in 2018, he was named the Craig Dobbin Professor of Canadian Studies at the University College of Dublin, Ireland.Finding Nothing: The VanGardes, 1959-1975 received the 2022 Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize for Outstanding Book on British Columbia. Dr. Susan E. Parker, UBC’s University Librarian, said, “The story laid out in this book, which is at once coherent and many-dimensioned, represents a huge volume of research material that has been thoroughly examined and analyzed. The book models what deft handling of complicated subject matter and materials should be. We are pleased to recognize Dr. Betts’ book with the Basil’ Stuart-Stubbs Prize.” The book has also received the 2021 Gabrielle Roy Prize, which each year honours the best work of scholarship on literature produced in Canada written in English. The judges said, "Filled with visual evidence of a vibrant cultural movement, this is a crucial source for those with an interest in late twentieth-century poetry and visual art, the history of small press activity, and the cultural histories of Vancouver."