Phyllis Gotlieb is known as poet, verse dramatist, and author of short stories and novels. As a poet, one might say, she is in need of rescue--from critics and other Canadian poets. Fred Cogswell, in a generally favorable review in Canadian Literature (1965), labeled her verse almost exclusively cerebral, while other reviewers have found her writing overly clever and trivial. She has been accused of playing dictionary games and of writing detached intellectual poetry with a touch of snobbery; her verse, one reviewer asserted, is not likely to affect the course of contemporary composition. A few, however, notably Douglas Barbour (in Tamarack Review, Winter 1979) and Louis L. Martz (in Yale Review, June 1970), have recognized Gotlieb's originality and skill.

The daughter of Leo and Mary Kates Bloom, she was born in Toronto on 25 May 1926 and has lived there virtually all her life. Her family owned and managed several movie theaters...