Ferns, John
Biography
John Ferns was born in Ottawa and is married with three grown children. He received an Honors B. A. from Oxford University (England) and an M.A. and Ph. D. from the University of Western Ontario, where he was a Commonwealth Scholar and a Canada Council Doctoral Fellow. His doctoral dissertation concerned the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Since 1970 he has taught at McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario) where he is now Professor of English. He has written two critical literary studies: A. J. M. Smith (1979) and Lytton Strachey (1988); and he has co-edited two literary collections: George Whalley's Studies in Literature and the Humanities (1985 with Brian Crick, co-ed.) and The Poetry of Lucy Maud Montgomery (1987 with Kevin McCabe, co-ed.) He has had four books of his own poetry published: The Antlered Boy (1970), Henry Hudson (1975), The Snow Horses (1977) and From the River.... (1985). He has served as a member of the Hamilton and Region Arts Council Literary Committee and he is a founding member of the Hamilton Poetry Centre where he organized and led their Poetry Workshop series for over ten years as well as other executive positions.
Other Information
Not Available
Published Work
2005. Dramatic Anxieties: William Bodham Donne, Censorship and the Victorian Theatre [with Robert Bell]. Hamilton: McMaster University. (Nonfiction)
2003. The Eschatological Imagination: Mediating David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest [with John Timothy Jacobs]. Hamilton: McMaster University. (Nonfiction)
1990. F.R. Leavis. New York: Twayne Publishers. (Nonfiction)
1988. Lytton Strachey. New York: Twayne Publishers. (Nonfiction)
1987. The Poetry of Lucy Maud Montgomery [editor, with Kevin McCabe]. Markham, Ont.: Fitzhenry & Whiteside. (Nonfiction)
1979. A.J.M. Smith. New York: Twayne Publishers. (Nonfiction)
1989. Affirmations [with Lionel Adey and Anthony Trott]. Ottawa: Borealis Press. (Poetry)
1985. From the River: Poems 1964 – 1984. Ottawa: Borealis Press. (Poetry)
1977. The Snow Horses: Poems 1965 – 1975. Ottawa: Borealis Press. (Poetry)
1975. Henry Hudson, or, Discovery. Windsor: Sesame Press. (Poetry)
1970. The Antlered Boy [with Lloyd Abbey]. Fredericton: Fiddlehead Poetry Books. (Poetry)
