Ross Leckie
Biography
Ross Leckie is a retired professor, formerly of the University of New Brunswick. Though born in the Lachine suburb of Montreal, Quebec, Leckie has travelled across Canada in as both a student and teacher, and holds degrees from McGill University (BA), the University of Alberta (BEd), Concordia University (MA), and the University of Toronto (PhD). During his postdoctoral research on John Ashbery while at Princeton University, Leckie attended a weekly writing workshops hosted by American poet Alicia Ostriker. Leckie then taught at the University of Toronto in 1991 for three years, followed by another three years of teaching the University of Northern British Colombia in 1994. Leckie began teaching creative writing at the University of New Brunswick in 1997, served as their Director of Creative Writing, and editor of The Fiddlehead. His mother’s family history was heavily tied to the Loyalists from Saint John and Moncton, and Leckie spent many summers in New Brunswick, a place he draws much inspiration from in his work.
Please visit Ross Leckie’s entry on the New Brunswick Literary Encyclopedia to learn more.
Please visit Ross Leckie’s entry on the New Brunswick Literary Encyclopedia to learn more.
It carries the burden of human effluent,
and we are amazed at how transparently
it is absorbed. At sunset a watercolour sky
leaves magenta in the wisps of cirrus
and livid pink in the sky behind the town.
Indigo is in the low ruffle of cloud,
and an orange acidic shade of rind
is burnt into the horizon. This wash
seeps into the river’s nocturnal reflections,
where it deepens into sombre shades
of burgundy and charcoal. The river
coming out of the bush could have had no
knowledge of this conflagration of human
dispersal. The pulp and paper chimney
raising its black finger up from the skyline
shoots its perpetual anger into the sky,
but the sky cools and gentles it, slows
the plume into a gorgeous mauve that
puffs and billows into quiet evaporation.
Beneath the water’s darker ruffled reds
the chimney like a squid jets its black ink.
Published in Gravity’s Plumb Line. Gaspereau Press, 2005.
Republished here with the author’s permission.
and we are amazed at how transparently
it is absorbed. At sunset a watercolour sky
leaves magenta in the wisps of cirrus
and livid pink in the sky behind the town.
Indigo is in the low ruffle of cloud,
and an orange acidic shade of rind
is burnt into the horizon. This wash
seeps into the river’s nocturnal reflections,
where it deepens into sombre shades
of burgundy and charcoal. The river
coming out of the bush could have had no
knowledge of this conflagration of human
dispersal. The pulp and paper chimney
raising its black finger up from the skyline
shoots its perpetual anger into the sky,
but the sky cools and gentles it, slows
the plume into a gorgeous mauve that
puffs and billows into quiet evaporation.
Beneath the water’s darker ruffled reds
the chimney like a squid jets its black ink.
Published in Gravity’s Plumb Line. Gaspereau Press, 2005.
Republished here with the author’s permission.
I knew that I could die, but looking through
the wooden slats of the covered bridge,
an eight-year-old, a comfortable hand in
my father’s, I realized he would die too.
It was pleasant to stand in the gloom,
aware of the blistering brightness at each end.
I wondered why the timbers weren’t painted
like a house. We both loved the “thunka-thunka”
of the planks as a rusted pickup lumbered over them.
“The world’s longest.” From one end to
the other. A name can tell you everything
you want to know. A name can say that
this is a place where everything is dear.
For a moment I thought the heart carved
in the board was my father’s: RL loves DB.
I looked through the boards at the tawny
colour of the water, lit by the light, so
heartlessly transparent, its hands washed clean.
Published in Gravity’s Plumb Line. Gaspereau Press, 2005.
Republished here with the author’s permission.
the wooden slats of the covered bridge,
an eight-year-old, a comfortable hand in
my father’s, I realized he would die too.
It was pleasant to stand in the gloom,
aware of the blistering brightness at each end.
I wondered why the timbers weren’t painted
like a house. We both loved the “thunka-thunka”
of the planks as a rusted pickup lumbered over them.
“The world’s longest.” From one end to
the other. A name can tell you everything
you want to know. A name can say that
this is a place where everything is dear.
For a moment I thought the heart carved
in the board was my father’s: RL loves DB.
I looked through the boards at the tawny
colour of the water, lit by the light, so
heartlessly transparent, its hands washed clean.
Published in Gravity’s Plumb Line. Gaspereau Press, 2005.
Republished here with the author’s permission.
Critical Analysis: Lily Pad Scapegoats: Settler Pollution in "The Saint John River"
Claudia Chartier (English 3103: Advanced Poetry Workshop), Jamie Kitts (ACPA Managing Editor, 2020), and Charlotte Simmons (English 3103: Advanced Poetry Workshop
As Ross Leckie writes in his poem “Hartland,” “A name can tell you everything / you want to know. A name can say that / this is a place where everything is dear” (18). While this is a play on the name of the poem – Hartland as a land of heart – it also invites us to consider what precisely we want to know. For example, this section in Leckie’s Gravity’s Plumb Line is called “The Saint John River,” but that is not the river’s only name; its traditional name is Wolastoq.
Gravity’s Plumb Line opens the “Saint John River” section – poems about New Brunswick communities and landmarks along the Wolastoq. While these poems show a convergence between vivid colors, nature imagery, and human connection, they do not make distinctions between what kinds of people leave which kinds of footprints. Leckie others nature as a scapegoat for human transgressions, but then normalizes nature as an inherently integrated component of the colonized landscape, as though the terrain was not indigenous.
“Edmundston” depicts that small French community in Northwest New Brunswick through colors and a language of wonder. Appalachian Mountains cradle Edmundston as the Wolastoq runs through the city. Although Edmundston is known especially for its scenery, Leckie highlights the burden placed on the town by the sewage from the local mill. The Twin Rivers paper mill may be a primary contributor to Edmundston’s local economy, but the mill also emits a thick black smoke into the sky, a rancid stench into the air, and runoff into the river.
Leckie describes the mill’s pollution as normal and integral to the community; the mill “shoots its perpetual anger into the sky, / but the sky cools and gentles it, slows / the plume into a gorgeous mauve that / puffs and billows into quiet evaporation” (15). It is not merely that this pollution goes by unseen and ignored, but that “we are amazed at how transparently / it is absorbed” (15). Leckie’s narrator speaks as part of a collective understanding – a mutual wonder at how pollution becomes nature. The framing and language of this piece suggests not that this is concerning or dangerous, but that this normalization too is beautiful, and that those who observe this process marvel not at the natural, but precisely at how the natural absorbs smoke and sewage like it was never there. From another of Leckie’s poems in the “Saint John River” section, “Baker Lake”: “You feel that just one of these lily pads / should answer for human suffering” (12).
The violence of nature naturalized and manipulated continues in the poem “Hartland.” Leckie, writing from his memories of being eight years old, ponders “why the timbers weren’t painted like a house” (18). The intimacy between the boy and his father, and small details like the heart carved into the wood, “RL loves DB,” and the bridge as a dark place between light sources, hold many implications: that there is something about the covered bridge that feels like being at home that there may be a family connection to the bridge or the town, and that there is something liminal about the bridge.
The timbers used to construct the bridge occupy a similar space as the sky and the river in “Edmundston,” and perform a similar function. These are natural designs twisted by a colonial footprint – resources made to accept the weight of settler violence almost invisibly. They pretend the lumbering weight of trucks, smoke, and effluent are normal. This too is violence. So, to say in “Hartland” that the water is “heartlessly transparent” (18), is not necessarily a value judgment against the water, merely that it contains no reflection of Hartland. This body, unlike the squid spewing ink in the Wolastoq of “Edmundston,” holds no amazing tainted water, though it is mediated by the near-death space of the covered bridge.
But as nature becomes resources and materials, text too is not static. In June 2020, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Officers shot and killed Chantel Moore, an Indigenous woman living in Edmundston. The officers were called to Moore’s home for a wellness check on her, and the killing is seen as unjustified by the public (Mercer et al., “N.B. police shooting of Indigenous woman sparks outrage across Canada”). As the sewage spills into Wolastoq, as we both acknowledge and forget pollution as it merges with river, and as we respectfully acknowledge “that the land on which we gather is the traditional unceded territory of the Wəlastəkwiyik (Maliseet) and Mi’kmaq Peoples” (Guide to Acknowledging First Peoples & Traditional Territory 8), no action as of this analysis’s publication has yet been taken to address the systemic racism and violence in New Brunswick by the provincial government. Until the mill is shut down, so to speak, there will be no justice, no peace.
Works Cited (for analysis):
Guide to Acknowledging First Peoples & Traditional Territory: September 2017. Canadian Association of University Teachers, 2017, p. 8. CAUT, caut.ca/sites/default/files/caut-guide-to-acknowledging-first-peoples-and-traditional-territory-2017-09.pdf. Accessed 21 August 2020.
Leckie, Ross. Gravity’s Plumb Line. Gaspereau Press, 2005, pp. 12-18.
Mercer, Greg, et al. “N.B. police shooting of Indigenous woman sparks outrage across Canada.” The Globe and Mail, 5 June 2020, www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-nb-police-shooting-of-indigenous-woman-sparks-outrage-across-canada.
As Ross Leckie writes in his poem “Hartland,” “A name can tell you everything / you want to know. A name can say that / this is a place where everything is dear” (18). While this is a play on the name of the poem – Hartland as a land of heart – it also invites us to consider what precisely we want to know. For example, this section in Leckie’s Gravity’s Plumb Line is called “The Saint John River,” but that is not the river’s only name; its traditional name is Wolastoq.
Gravity’s Plumb Line opens the “Saint John River” section – poems about New Brunswick communities and landmarks along the Wolastoq. While these poems show a convergence between vivid colors, nature imagery, and human connection, they do not make distinctions between what kinds of people leave which kinds of footprints. Leckie others nature as a scapegoat for human transgressions, but then normalizes nature as an inherently integrated component of the colonized landscape, as though the terrain was not indigenous.
“Edmundston” depicts that small French community in Northwest New Brunswick through colors and a language of wonder. Appalachian Mountains cradle Edmundston as the Wolastoq runs through the city. Although Edmundston is known especially for its scenery, Leckie highlights the burden placed on the town by the sewage from the local mill. The Twin Rivers paper mill may be a primary contributor to Edmundston’s local economy, but the mill also emits a thick black smoke into the sky, a rancid stench into the air, and runoff into the river.
Leckie describes the mill’s pollution as normal and integral to the community; the mill “shoots its perpetual anger into the sky, / but the sky cools and gentles it, slows / the plume into a gorgeous mauve that / puffs and billows into quiet evaporation” (15). It is not merely that this pollution goes by unseen and ignored, but that “we are amazed at how transparently / it is absorbed” (15). Leckie’s narrator speaks as part of a collective understanding – a mutual wonder at how pollution becomes nature. The framing and language of this piece suggests not that this is concerning or dangerous, but that this normalization too is beautiful, and that those who observe this process marvel not at the natural, but precisely at how the natural absorbs smoke and sewage like it was never there. From another of Leckie’s poems in the “Saint John River” section, “Baker Lake”: “You feel that just one of these lily pads / should answer for human suffering” (12).
The violence of nature naturalized and manipulated continues in the poem “Hartland.” Leckie, writing from his memories of being eight years old, ponders “why the timbers weren’t painted like a house” (18). The intimacy between the boy and his father, and small details like the heart carved into the wood, “RL loves DB,” and the bridge as a dark place between light sources, hold many implications: that there is something about the covered bridge that feels like being at home that there may be a family connection to the bridge or the town, and that there is something liminal about the bridge.
The timbers used to construct the bridge occupy a similar space as the sky and the river in “Edmundston,” and perform a similar function. These are natural designs twisted by a colonial footprint – resources made to accept the weight of settler violence almost invisibly. They pretend the lumbering weight of trucks, smoke, and effluent are normal. This too is violence. So, to say in “Hartland” that the water is “heartlessly transparent” (18), is not necessarily a value judgment against the water, merely that it contains no reflection of Hartland. This body, unlike the squid spewing ink in the Wolastoq of “Edmundston,” holds no amazing tainted water, though it is mediated by the near-death space of the covered bridge.
But as nature becomes resources and materials, text too is not static. In June 2020, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Officers shot and killed Chantel Moore, an Indigenous woman living in Edmundston. The officers were called to Moore’s home for a wellness check on her, and the killing is seen as unjustified by the public (Mercer et al., “N.B. police shooting of Indigenous woman sparks outrage across Canada”). As the sewage spills into Wolastoq, as we both acknowledge and forget pollution as it merges with river, and as we respectfully acknowledge “that the land on which we gather is the traditional unceded territory of the Wəlastəkwiyik (Maliseet) and Mi’kmaq Peoples” (Guide to Acknowledging First Peoples & Traditional Territory 8), no action as of this analysis’s publication has yet been taken to address the systemic racism and violence in New Brunswick by the provincial government. Until the mill is shut down, so to speak, there will be no justice, no peace.
Works Cited (for analysis):
Guide to Acknowledging First Peoples & Traditional Territory: September 2017. Canadian Association of University Teachers, 2017, p. 8. CAUT, caut.ca/sites/default/files/caut-guide-to-acknowledging-first-peoples-and-traditional-territory-2017-09.pdf. Accessed 21 August 2020.
Leckie, Ross. Gravity’s Plumb Line. Gaspereau Press, 2005, pp. 12-18.
Mercer, Greg, et al. “N.B. police shooting of Indigenous woman sparks outrage across Canada.” The Globe and Mail, 5 June 2020, www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-nb-police-shooting-of-indigenous-woman-sparks-outrage-across-canada.
Bibliography
Primary Sources: Poetry
Leckie, Ross. “Addition and Subtraction and All the Gorgeous Functions.” The Malahat Review 168 (Fall 2009): 69.
---. A Slow Line. Montreal: Signal Editions, 1983.
---. “At the Funeral.” The Antigonish Review 96 (Winter 1994): 69.
---. “A Wedding Poem.” The Malahat Review 146 (Spring 2004): 34.
---. “Between Florenceville and Woodstock.” The Antigonish Review 139 (Autumn 2004): 120.
---. “Breakwaters.” Descant 27.1/2 (Spring/Summer 1996): 92.
---. “First Break of Spring.” The Antigonish Review 96 (Winter 1994): 70.
---. “First Visit to the Library.” Ariel 25.4 (October 1994): 90.
---. “Frenchman’s Bay, Lake Ontario.” Descant 27.1/2 (Spring/Summer 1996): 93.
---. Gravity’s Plumb Line. Kentville: Gaspereau Press, 2005.
---. “Heading for...” The Malahat Review 168 (Fall 2009): 76.
---. “On the Porch at the Moment between Day and Night.” The Malahat Review 168 (Fall 2009): 72.
---. “Raccoon.” Ellipse 72 (Fall 2004): 92.
---. “The Albatross on Land.” The Fiddlehead 181 (Autumn 1994): 49.
---. The Authority of Roses. London: Brick Books, 1997.
---. “The Brain a Cauliflower.” The Malahat Review 168 (Fall 2009): 67.
---. “The Clam Diggers.” The Malahat Review 146 (Spring 2004): 30-31.
---. “The Convection of the Soul.” Arc 52 (Summer 2004): 48.
---. “The Critique of Pure Reason.” The Malahat Review 168 (Fall 2009): 74.
---. The Critique of Pure Reason. Victoria: Frog Hollow Press, 2013.
---. “The Double Pear.” The Malahat Review 146 (Spring 2004): 33.
---. “The Ice Bird.” The Malahat Review 146 (Spring 2004): 28-29.
---. “The Reunion.” New Republic 217.20 (17 Nov. 1997): 44.
---. “The Runner.” Southwest Review 78.2 (1993): 228.
---. “The Saint John River at Fredericton.” The Malahat Review 131 (Summer 2000): 55.
---. “Twelve Poems.” The Antigonish Review 127 (Fall 2001): 56-62.
---. “Woodstock.” The Malahat Review 146 (Spring 2004): 32.
---, et al, eds. Coastlines: The Poetry of Atlantic Canada. Fredericton: Goose Lane, 2002.
Primary Sources: Essays and Non-Fiction
Leckie, Ross. “A Cadential Sense of Rhythm: Dennis Lee on Poetics and Music.” Studies in Canadian Literature 26.1 (2001): 127-143.
---. “A Major Composer in a Minor Key.” Rev. of Houseboat on the Styx by A. F. Moritz. The Fiddlehead 199 (Spring 1999): 120-122.
---. “A Miscellany of Poetry.” Rev. of Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson, For a Modest God: New and Selected Poems by Eric Ornsby, and Flying Blind by Gary Geddes. The Fiddlehead 196 (Summer 1998): 178-182.
---. “A Puzzled Conversation with the Word.” Rev. of Closer to Home by Derk Wynand. The Fiddlehead 197 (Autumn 1998): 121-122.
---. “Charles Wright in Canada.” The Fiddlehead 236 (Summer 2008): 7-8.
---. “The Collected Poems of Alden Nowlan.” The Fiddlehead 273 (Autumn 2017): 5.
---. “The Contested Terrains of Politics and Pleasure in Cultural Studies.” University of Toronto Quarterly 64.4 (Fall 1995): 485-492.
---. “Don McKay’s ‘Twinflower’: Poetry’s Far Cry and Close Call.” Don McKay: Essays on His Works. Ed. by Brian Bartlett, Toronto: Guernica, 2006. 126-144.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 193 (Autumn 1997): 5-6.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 196 (Summer 1998): 5-6.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 199 (Spring 1999): 5-6.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 201 (Autumn 1999): 5-6.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 204 (Summer 2000): 5-6.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 206 (Winter 2000): 5-6.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 207 (Spring 2001): 5-6.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 211 (Spring 2002): 5-6.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 215 (Spring 2003): 5-6.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 221 (Autumn 2004): 5-6.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 223 (Spring 2005): 5-6.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 225 (Autumn 2005): 5-6.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 227 (Spring 2006): 5-8.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 228 (Summer 2006): 5-7.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 229 (Autumn 2006): 5-8.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 230 (Winter 2007): 5.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 231 (Spring 2007): 5-6.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 243 (Spring 2010): 5-6.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 251 (Spring 2012): 5-6.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 255 (Spring 2013): 5-6.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 259 (Spring 2014): 5-6.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 263 (Spring 2015): 6.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 267 (Spring 2016): 5-6.
---. “The Endearing Grotesque: Four Works of Maritime Fiction.” Rev. of The Night Season by Paul Bowdring, The Bubble Star by Lesley-Anne Bourne, Strange Heaven by Lynn Coady, and Sex is Red by Bill Gaston. The Fiddlehead 198 (Winter 1998): 120-124.
---. “The Fiddlehead is 65!” The Fiddlehead 244 (Summer 2010): 5-8.
---. “Fine Printing: Broadsheets and Chapbooks.” The Fiddlehead 221 (Autumn 2004): 120-123.
---. “For All the Impermanence.” Rev. of In Cannon Cave by Carole Glasser Langille. The Fiddlehead 194 (Winter 1997): 123-125.
---. “The 2003 Governor General’s Award for Poetry.” Ellipse 72 (Fall 2004): 54-57.
---. “The Hard Clarity of Chaos.” Rev. of Granite Erratics by Brian Bartlett. The Fiddlehead 193 (Autumn 1997): 138-140.
---. “Kazim Ali's Sublime Ordinary.” The Fiddlehead 279 (Spring 2019): 8-9.
---. “Love’s Semiosis.” Rev. of Sweet Ellipsis by John Barton. The Fiddlehead 199 (Spring 1999): 118-120.
---. “Norman Dubie: The Details of Winter That Upset Us.” The Fiddlehead 271 (Spring 2017): 41-42.
---. “Plot-resistant narrative and Russel Bank's ‘Black Man and White Woman in Dark Green Rowboat.’” Studies in Short Fiction 31.3 (Summer 1994): 407-413.
---. “Poetics.” Rev. of Vis à Vis by Don McKay, and Guernica Writers Series. The Fiddlehead 212 (Summer 2002): 150-154.
---. “The Poetics of Everyday Life.” Rev. of The Collected Poems by Patrick Lane. The Fiddlehead 253 (Autumn 2012): 127-131.
---. “The Poetry of Mary Jo Salter.” The Fiddlehead 268 (Summer 2016): 7-8.
---. “Remembering Alistair McLeod.” The Fiddlehead (Autumn 2014): 5-6.
---. “The Resources of Poetry.” Rev. of Waterglass by Jeffery Donaldson, All the God-Sized Fruit by Shawna Lemay, and Chess Pieces by David Solway. The Fiddlehead 201 (Autumn 1999): 119-124.
---. Rev. of Elizabeth Bishop at Work by Eleanor Cook. University of Toronto Quarterly 87.3 (Summer 2018): 368-370.
---. “The Rhetoric of Romanticism.” Rev. of The Thin Smoke of the Heart by Tim Bowling. The Fiddlehead 206 (Winter 2000): 122-125.
---. “Spring Contest.” The Fiddlehead 271 (Spring 2017): 5-6.
---. “Stretching the Snowy Pages Toward May Flowers.” The Fiddlehead 275 (Spring 2018): 5-6.
---. “Summer 2014 Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 260 (Summer 2014): 5-6.
---. “Summer 2018 Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 276 (Summer 2018): 5-8.
---. “Summer Poetry Issue 2016.” The Fiddlehead 268 (Summer 2016): 5-6.
---. “That Long, Last Summer.” The Fiddlehead 252 (Summer 2012): 5-6.
---. “‘That Watery, Dazzling Dialectic’: Elizabeth Bishop’s Sublime Brazil.” Jarrell, Bishop, Lowell, & Co.: Middle-Generation Poets in Context. Ed. by Suzanne Ferguson, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2003.
---. “This Difficult Idea of Home.” Rev. of Simple Recipes by Madeleine Thien. The Fiddlehead 208 (Summer 2001): 169-171.
---. “To Pound Some Sense Into Cylinders of Event.” Rev. of Leonel Roque by Jim Smith. The Fiddlehead 197 (Autumn 1998): 122.
---. “Uncanny Affiliations.” Rev. of The Bridge That Carries the Road by Lynn Davies, and The True Names of Birds by Susan Goyette. The Fiddlehead 202 (Winter 1999): 117-121.
---. “The West Coast Issue.” The Fiddlehead 253 (Autumn 2012): 5-6.
---, and Mark Anthony Jarman. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 247 (Spring 2011): 5-7.
---, et al. “Canadian Poetry: Traditions/Counter-Traditions.” Studies in Canadian Literature 30.1 (2005). SCL, journals-lib-unb-ca.proxy.hil.unb.ca.
---, et al. “In Conversation: Brian Bartlett, Ross Leckie and Anne Simpsons Discuss Jan Zwicky’s Wisdom and Metaphor.” The Fiddlehead 222 (Winter 2005): 82-104.
Secondary Sources
Bartlett, Brian. Rev. of Gravity’s Plumb Line by Ross Leckie. The Malahat Review 154 (Spring 2006): 93-95.
Bolster, Stephanie. Rev. of The Authority of Roses by Ross Leckie. Arc 39 (Fall 1997): 84-85.
Chlebek, Diana. “Canada: Compiled and Introduced.” The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 46.4 (December 2011): 573-601.
Compton, Anne. “An Admirable Clarity: Ross Leckie’s New Collection, Gravity’s Plumb Line.” Interview with Ross Leckie. Meetings with Maritime Poets. Markham: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2006. 337-365.
Greene, Richard. “I Showed You My Tattoo!” Rev. of Meetings with Maritime Poets by Anne Compton. Books in Canada 36.5 (Summer 2007): 32-33.
“Iris: Ross Leckie.” New Brunswick Literature Garden, nbliteraturegarden.wordpress.com.
MacKendrick, Louis K. Rev. of The Authority of Roses by Ross Leckie. Journal of Canadian Poetry 14 (1997): 89-97.
Macleod, Alexander. “‘Having a conversation with the place you're in’: Discussing the Past, Present and Future of Atlantic-Canadian Poetry.” Interview with Brian Bartlett, Ross Leckie, Lindsay Marshall, and Anne Simpson. The Dalhousie Review 89.1 (Spring 2009): 25-37.
Miller, Eric. “A Larger Heart.” Rev. of Gravity’s Plumb Line by Ross Leckie. Books in Canada 34.7 (October 2005): 29-30.
Monson, Jane. Rev. of Coastlines: The Poetry of Atlantic Canada ed. by Anne Compton, Laurence Hutchman, Ross Leckie, and Robin McGrath. British Journal of Canadian Studies 16.2 (September 2003): 409-410.
Rev. of The Authority of Roses by Ross Leckie. Waterfront Views, waterfrontviews.acadiau.ca.
Sinclair, Sue. “Thank You, Ross.” The Fiddlehead 278 (Winter 2019): 6.
Stubbs, Andrew. Rev. of Coastlines: The Poetry of Atlantic Canada ed. by Anne Compton, Laurence Hutchman, Ross Leckie, and Robin McGrath. The Antigonish Review 136 (Winter 2004): 51-58.
Leckie, Ross. “Addition and Subtraction and All the Gorgeous Functions.” The Malahat Review 168 (Fall 2009): 69.
---. A Slow Line. Montreal: Signal Editions, 1983.
---. “At the Funeral.” The Antigonish Review 96 (Winter 1994): 69.
---. “A Wedding Poem.” The Malahat Review 146 (Spring 2004): 34.
---. “Between Florenceville and Woodstock.” The Antigonish Review 139 (Autumn 2004): 120.
---. “Breakwaters.” Descant 27.1/2 (Spring/Summer 1996): 92.
---. “First Break of Spring.” The Antigonish Review 96 (Winter 1994): 70.
---. “First Visit to the Library.” Ariel 25.4 (October 1994): 90.
---. “Frenchman’s Bay, Lake Ontario.” Descant 27.1/2 (Spring/Summer 1996): 93.
---. Gravity’s Plumb Line. Kentville: Gaspereau Press, 2005.
---. “Heading for...” The Malahat Review 168 (Fall 2009): 76.
---. “On the Porch at the Moment between Day and Night.” The Malahat Review 168 (Fall 2009): 72.
---. “Raccoon.” Ellipse 72 (Fall 2004): 92.
---. “The Albatross on Land.” The Fiddlehead 181 (Autumn 1994): 49.
---. The Authority of Roses. London: Brick Books, 1997.
---. “The Brain a Cauliflower.” The Malahat Review 168 (Fall 2009): 67.
---. “The Clam Diggers.” The Malahat Review 146 (Spring 2004): 30-31.
---. “The Convection of the Soul.” Arc 52 (Summer 2004): 48.
---. “The Critique of Pure Reason.” The Malahat Review 168 (Fall 2009): 74.
---. The Critique of Pure Reason. Victoria: Frog Hollow Press, 2013.
---. “The Double Pear.” The Malahat Review 146 (Spring 2004): 33.
---. “The Ice Bird.” The Malahat Review 146 (Spring 2004): 28-29.
---. “The Reunion.” New Republic 217.20 (17 Nov. 1997): 44.
---. “The Runner.” Southwest Review 78.2 (1993): 228.
---. “The Saint John River at Fredericton.” The Malahat Review 131 (Summer 2000): 55.
---. “Twelve Poems.” The Antigonish Review 127 (Fall 2001): 56-62.
---. “Woodstock.” The Malahat Review 146 (Spring 2004): 32.
---, et al, eds. Coastlines: The Poetry of Atlantic Canada. Fredericton: Goose Lane, 2002.
Primary Sources: Essays and Non-Fiction
Leckie, Ross. “A Cadential Sense of Rhythm: Dennis Lee on Poetics and Music.” Studies in Canadian Literature 26.1 (2001): 127-143.
---. “A Major Composer in a Minor Key.” Rev. of Houseboat on the Styx by A. F. Moritz. The Fiddlehead 199 (Spring 1999): 120-122.
---. “A Miscellany of Poetry.” Rev. of Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson, For a Modest God: New and Selected Poems by Eric Ornsby, and Flying Blind by Gary Geddes. The Fiddlehead 196 (Summer 1998): 178-182.
---. “A Puzzled Conversation with the Word.” Rev. of Closer to Home by Derk Wynand. The Fiddlehead 197 (Autumn 1998): 121-122.
---. “Charles Wright in Canada.” The Fiddlehead 236 (Summer 2008): 7-8.
---. “The Collected Poems of Alden Nowlan.” The Fiddlehead 273 (Autumn 2017): 5.
---. “The Contested Terrains of Politics and Pleasure in Cultural Studies.” University of Toronto Quarterly 64.4 (Fall 1995): 485-492.
---. “Don McKay’s ‘Twinflower’: Poetry’s Far Cry and Close Call.” Don McKay: Essays on His Works. Ed. by Brian Bartlett, Toronto: Guernica, 2006. 126-144.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 193 (Autumn 1997): 5-6.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 196 (Summer 1998): 5-6.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 199 (Spring 1999): 5-6.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 201 (Autumn 1999): 5-6.
---. “Editorial.” The Fiddlehead 204 (Summer 2000): 5-6.
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