I was a student at the University of Toronto and was writing poetry and got a call from a place called Coach House Press, who asked if I had perhaps a book of poetry they could publish. They had, a year earlier, published their first book of poetry by Wayne Clifford called Man in a Window. That was 1962. The press had been set up by a printer named Stan Bevington with his friend the art critic Dennis Reid. The press was a merging of visual art and writing. (It still exists that way.) And they would soon be publishing writers like Joe Rosenblatt and bpNichol, and later on from the West Coast, writers like Daphne Marlatt, George Bowering, Roy Kiyooka, Sharon Thesen, as well as many other poets from across the country. I remember the very first book launch I ever went to was for a Coach House book. The LSD Leacock by Joe Rosenblatt. I got a train to Toronto and was starving, and the food was a selection of insects in chocolate, all planned by Rosenblatt!
The verve and range of the press was a great education for all of us. We were witnessing the craft of how a book was designed and made, and how it could also influence the work itself in a new way. I know it influenced me and what it allowed me to do. Years later when House of Anansi Press wanted to publish my Collected Works of Billy the Kid, I asked them if they would allow Coach House to design it. And while Dennis Lee from Anansi was its editor, the look of the book reflected the style of Coach House. The first page had a poem called “I send you a picture of Billy . . .” and above it there was a photo of him. bpNichol was strolling by; he looked at it quickly and just said: “Keep the lines, but take out the photo—let the reader imagine him.” I took his advice.
We were young poets, and we would be educated by this small press and their designers and artists such as Rick/Simon and John DeJesus (who is still at Coach House), and others working there such as Nelson Adams, Glenn Goluska, Diane Martin, Clifford James, Sarah Sheard. Many like them worked at Coach House for years and would be a huge influence on us, the writers. We were lucky: We understood the link between literature and design, a poem and the shape of a book. It was the best gift we had been given as young writers at the beginning of a career.
(During those early years Coach House had earned some of its money printing menus for local restaurants. Unknown to those owners, the Coach House’s printed menus included tiny, barely readable lines that said: PRINTED IN CANADA BY MINDLESS ACID FREAKS.)
It is now 2025. With Coach House sixty years old this year. The press still has its ears to the ground. Alana Wilcox, its brilliant editor, has edited remarkable books like The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr, or the wondrous Fifteen Dogs and other books by André Alexis. And just this year there is, I think, the best book published in this country: Maggie Helwig’s Encampment.
Coach House continues as a remarkable independent small press with those still there—like John DeJesus and Alana Wilcox, who carry on.
Thank you, Stan. Coach House changed my life.
Michael O.
June 12, 2025
