"Jewish Canadian poets on the whole are recognizable by their emphasis on the human dimension, the translation of the experience of the immigrant and the outsider, the finding of joy in the face of adversity, the linking with tradition and the concern with history in its widest sense," Seymour Mayne writes in his historical introduction to Essential Words: An Anthology of Jewish Canadian Poetry (1985), referring explicitly to Jewish-Canadian poets yet providing an accurate commentary on his own poetry. These poets, he continues, "strive for the essential words that echo more than the individual's need. They move to enter a communal language, to find the words that speak to and for the community, whether they relate to the everyday or the eternal. Their words draw in their contemporaries, while invoking the presence of ancestors and tradition."

The eldest of two sons of Henry and Doris Minkin Mayne, Seymour Mayne...