Kenneth Leslie

Kenneth Leslie (1892–1974) was a Canadian poet and songwriter, and an influential political activist in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. He was the founder and editor of The Protestant Digest (later The Protestant), which had a peak circulation of over 50,000 subscribers.

Kenneth Leslie was raised by his mother, Bertha Starratt Leslie. As a boy he learned to play the violin and piano, and loved to sing; he also wrote poetry. He "was a child prodigy, attending Dalhousie University in Halifax at age 14." Later he was educated at Colgate Theological Seminary for a year; the University of Nebraska, where he received his Master of Arts degree in 1914; and Harvard, where he studied under the American idealist philosopher Josiah Royce, but did not receive a doctorate.

Poetry Leslie wrote poetry as a boy; his first poem, he later recalled, was about Bonnie Prince Charlie. In the 1920s in Nova Scotia he and his first wife were members of The Song Fishermen, a literary and society group that included Charles G. D. Roberts and Bliss Carman. Leslie began contributing poetry to the Song Fishermen broadsheets, and soon in other small Halifax literary publications too. By the end of the decade he had published poems in Literary Digest and Scribner's.

Recognition Leslie won the 1938 Governor General's Award for his book, By Stubborn Stars. and The Cottars.

Leslie was the subject of a 2008 VisionTV documentary, God’s Red Poet: The Life of Kenneth Leslie. ,

Anthologized poems "Cobweb College." "A warm rain whispers, but the earth knows best." "Day slipped out of the web of her fog-wet gown." "My love is sleeping; but her body seems." "The silver herring throbbed thick in my seine." The Book of Canadian Poetry. Ed. A. J. M. Smith. First Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1943, p. 300. (Also in the 1948 and 1957 editions of the anthology.) "A warm rain whispers, but the earth knows best." "The silver herring throbbed thick in my seine." Twentieth-Century Canadian Poetry. Ed. Earle Birney. Toronto: Ryerson, 1953, pp. 14–15. "From soil somehow the poet's word." "My love is sleeping; but her body seems." "The silver herring throbbed thick in my seine." The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse. Ed. A. J. M. Smith. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1960, pp. 173–174. "A warm rain whispers, but the earth knows best." "The silver herring throbbed thick in my seine." The Penguin Book of Canadian Verse. Ed. Ralph Gustafson. Revised Edition. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1967, p. 126. (Also in later editions.) "Halibut Cove Harvest," "The silver herring throbbed thick in my seine," The New Oxford Book of Canadian Verse in English. Ed. Margaret Atwood. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1983. "The silver herring throbbed thick in my seine." Jailbreaks: 99 Canadian Sonnets. Ed. Zachariah Wells. Windsor: Biblioasis, 2008, p. 35.

Pamphlets and periodicals

Protestant Digest. Boston and New York, 1938-41. The Protestant. New York and Halifax, 1941-53. Hungary: Christian or Pagan: An Eye-Witness Report. [New York: New Christian Books, c.1950]. One. Halifax: New Christian Books, 1951? New Christian. Halifax, 1953-55. New Christian Pamphlet. Halifax, 1955 [-?] Man. Halifax, [1957-59?] New Man. Pictou and Halifax, 1959-72. Christ, Church And Communism. Gravenhurst, Ontario: Northern Book House, 1962.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy of Canadian Poetry: Studies/Documents/Reviews.