Introduction: Robert Gibbs.
The 1940s and 1950s: Bliss Carman, Alfred G. Bailey, Lenore Pratt, Dorothy Roberts, Alfred W. Purdy, Alden Nowlan, Irving Layton, D. G. Jones, Milton Acorn, Miriam Waddington, Felix Anselm, Lawrence P. Spingarn, Susan Vinton, Ralph Gustafson, C. Frederick Boyle, and Milton Acorn.
The 1960s: Fred Cogswell, Kay Smith, M. Travis Lane, Gwendolyn MacEwen, Milton Acorn, Alden Nowlan, Sanford Sternlicht, R. G. Everson, Michael Ondaatje, James Dougherty, John Gill, Alden Nowlan, Dorothy Fraser, Elizabeth Brewster, Alden Nowlan, and Joy Kogawa.
The 1970s: Kent Thompson, Pat Lowther, Joyce Carol Oates, Eugene McNamara, rienzi crusz, Alistair MacLeod, Ralph Gustafson, Alden Nowlan, Robert Kroestch, E. J. Carson, Don McKay, Tom Wayman, Margaret Atwood, Douglas Glover, Pier Giorgio DiCicco, David Waltner-Toews, David Romtvedt, Bronwen Wallace, Catherine M. Buckaway Theresa Kishkan, Bert Almon, and Erin Mouré.
The 1980s: Peter Thomas, William Bauer, Lela Parlow, M. Travis Lane, David Adams Richards, Allan Donaldson, Carol Shields, Robert Gibbs, Fred Cogswell, Raymond Souster, Walter McDonald, Steven Laird, George Elliott Clarke, Kirk Wirsig, Robert R. Ward, Fred Johnston, Nathan Cervo, and Carl Leggo.
The 1990s: Don McKay, Ann Copeland, R. B. Richards, Liliane Welch, Derk Wynand, Greg Hollingshead, George Thaniel, Anna Synenko, Tim Lilburn, John Steffler, Anne Simpson, Cellan Jay, Don Domanski, Eric Ormsby, Susan Downe, Kim Roberts, Carole Langille, Karen Connelly, Joyce Marshall, and Lynn Coady.
Afterword: Don McKay.