In this thesis, I observe the methods modern American poets employ to achieve literary activism in their work. Poets Amiee Nezhukumatathil, Marcus Wicker, and Tracy K. Smith all examine and critique different aspects of American life and culture. Ultimately, I argue that each poet, in their own way, develops a voice that deftly straddles between the personal and public. By doing so, the poets invigorate their work with an authenticity that is crucial in developing an ethos vivacious enough to create a call to action for readers. I will also discuss how I create a similar balance of the personal and public in my own work in order to stir readers into an activist mindset.

The Writers’ Union of Canada was founded in November of 1973 “to unite Canadian writers for the advancement of their common interests.” Drawing on extensive archival collections – from both the Writers’ Union and its member authors – this dissertation offers the first critical history of the organization and its work, from pre-founding to the early 1990s, arguing that the Writers’ Union has fundamentally influenced Canadian literature, as an industry, as a community, and as a field of study. I begin by tracing the contextual history of the organization’s founding, interrogating how union organizing, celebrity, and friendship underpin the organization’s work. Chapter One discusses the Writers’ Union’s programs, reforms, and interventions aimed at ‘fostering’ writing in Canada as I argue that the Union was instrumental in building a fiscal-cultural futurity for CanLit. In Chapter Two, I consider the role that women played in this important work, as I highlight the labour of female Union members and the all-female administrative staff, who maintained and supported the organization’s work through its first twenty years. In Chapter Three I draw attention to the stories of, perspectives of, and experiences of BIPOC authors in relation to the Writers’ Union. While the Writers’ Union’s involvement in race relations is often positioned as having ‘begun’ with the Writing Thru Race conference in 1994, this chapter uses the archives to reveal a much longer trajectory of racialized conflict within and around the organization, providing important context for the very controversial and public battles about appropriation and race that would explode in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Throughout this work, I look to see how institutional narratives are deployed and upheld, and to what ends; how successful advocacy work is often effaced and forgotten; how institutional structures function; and how their boundaries and intentions are challenged and developed over time. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / The Writers’ Union of Canada was founded in November of 1973 “to unite Canadian writers for the advancement of their common interests.” Drawing on extensive archival collections – from both the Writers’ Union and its member authors – this dissertation offers the first critical history of the organization and its work, from pre-founding to the early 1990s. I argue that the Writers’ Union has fundamentally influenced Canadian literature – as an industry, as a community, and as a field of study – as I consider how unionism, literary celebrity, and friendship underpinned the organization’s work. This dissertation recuperates and comments on the important volunteer labour of Writers’ Union members in the service of literary labour, gender equity, and racial equity over the organization’s first twenty years.