Joe Wallace

Joe Wallace (born Joseph Sylvester Wallace, 29 October 1890 – 1 December 1975) was a Canadian poet, journalist, and political activist for Communism in Canada. As a poet, he was briefly affiliated with The Song Fishermen, an informal group of poets from Atlantic Canada.[1]

Joseph Sylvester Wallace
Born1890
Toronto
Died1975
Vancouver, British Columbia
OccupationPoet
Spouse(s)Therese Dorothy (Dot) Granville, Grace Beardsley
Parent(s)Thomas Wallace, Mary (Polly) Redmond

Biography

On 29 October 1890, Joe Wallace was born in Toronto to Thomas Wallace and Mary (Polly) Redmond. He was the fourth of seven children.[2] When his mother died in 1897, due to complications related to child birth, his father move his family to Nova Scotia, living in Truro, North Sydney, and Halifax. At the age of eleven, Wallace ran away from home. His father, in response, sent his son to St. Patrick's Catholic Home for Boys.[2]

In 1910, he attended St. Francis Xavier University, from which he was expelled two years later.

His brother got him a job at the International Correspondence School, becoming the Halifax district manager by 1911. He worked there until 1916.[2]

In 1915, he married Therese Dorothy (Dot) Granville, siring four children.

In 1920, he resigned from the Liberals to join the socialist Halifax Labour Party, which was subsequently affiliated with the Canadian Labour Party.[2]

In 1922, he joined the Communist Party of Canada (CPC), for whom he wrote articles, essays, and poems for three major Canadian Communist newspapers: the Worker (1922–1936), the Daily Clarion (1936–1939), and the Canadian Tribune (1940–1975).[2] He later became a full-time CPC journalist and activist after leaving his career in advertising in 1933.[1]

In 1925, his five-year-old daughter died; in 1927, his wife died. In 1928, he married Grace Beardsley, but soon separated.

In 1933, he ran in the 17th Nova Scotia general election for a seat in Halifax. He was backed by the United Front Party, led by J. B. McLachlan.[2]

In 1940, when Mackenzie King invoked the War Measures act, making Communist activities effectively illegal, Wallace was imprisoned between 8 March 1941 – October 1942.[1][2]

For eight years I worked with my hands. This was not a degrading experience for me. I felt, and still feel, that a poet should do manual labor. He should be given this chance to meet all classes of people. He must live and work with the masses if he is to be a poet at all

— Joe Wallace, 1960[2]

After his time in prison, he released his first volume of poetry Night Is Ended (1942). He then worked as a lathe operator at Ferranti Electric in Toronto, where he helped organize a union. In his spare time, he also began writing a column for the Tribune. In 1952, he help found the literary magazine New Frontier, and served as one of its first members of the editorial committee. The magazine survived for five years.[2]

In 1957, he traveled to Russia for ten-months, where he found his poetry known and appreciated. He returned to Russia in 1960, staying until 1963.[1] In 1966, Wallace was invited as a guest of the Soviet government on a summer cruise to Denmark and Russia upon the luxury liner Pushkin.[2]

In 1968, he moved to Vancouver. On 1 December 1975, he died of a heart attack in Vancouver.[1]

For the entirety of his life, he was a devout Catholic.[1][2]

Legacy

From the 1950s until after his death, Wallace was the most famous Canadian poet in Eastern Europe and China.[2]

In 1981, Progress Books prepared a selected edition of his works, titled Joe Wallace Poems.

In 2010, two of his poems ('The Five Point Star' and 'All My Brothers Are Beautiful') were anthologized in Brian Trehearne's 'Canadian Poetry: 1920–1960.[1]

Bibliography
  • Night Is Ended (1942), with a preface by E. J. Pratt
  • All My Brothers (1953)
  • Hi, Sister! Hi, Brother! (1956)
  • The Golden Legend (1958), an anthology of Wallace's poem compiled by the Foreign Languages Publishing House in Moscow after his first visit there.
  • A Radiant Sphere (1964), including poetic reworks of translations by select Russian poets

References
  1. Canadian Poetry: 1920 to 1960, ed. Brian Trehearne. McClelland & Stewart, 2010.
  2. The Canadian Worker Poet: the Life and Writings of Joe Wallace, James Doyle. University of Western Ontario
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