You must work harder to write poetry of excellence: ideolect and ideology in Canadian poetry reviewing since 1961

This research examines poetry reviewing in Canada since 1961 when, arguably, the cultural shift into postmodernity begins to affect poetry production in Canada. Based on the primary observation that the textual forms produced under the sign of poetry have pluralised exponentially since 1961 while the concepts, tropes, metaphors of poetry reviewing have remained very stable, this thesis treats the language of poetry reviews as a relatively constant ideolect, and sets out to map and interpret some of its most structurally crucial constitutive threads. Its theoretical points of departure include Louis Althusser, Judith Butler and Slavoj Zizek's treatment of language and ideology, Frederic Jameson's reading of postmodernity, and contemporary North American poetics.