As though life mattered

by Patricia Morley

In the Montreal of the 1920s, a small group of young radicals - Leo Kennedy, Frank Scott, A. M. Klein, and A. J. M. Smith - transformed Canadian poetry with enthusiasm, talent, and the creation of a modern alternative press. Kennedy was born in Liverpool in 1907 to Irish immigrant parents and moved with his family to Montreal when he was still very young. Although his formal education ended at Grade six, his intelligence, imagination, and wit, coupled with an intense love of language and learning, opened many doors and allowed him to become a part of Montreal's circle of privilege. He was, though, to remain always the outsider. Kennedy's choices in religion, friendship, marriage, and business were deeply influenced by the same yearning for justice and defence of humane values that informed his verse, stories, and essays. A successfully published poet at the age of 26 (The Shrouding, 1933), Kennedy soon left his literary world for that of the emerging business of advertising to support