The League was born on August 20, 1966, when Ron Everson, Raymond Souster, Louis Dudeck, Ralph Gustafson, and Michael Gnarowski met to discuss founding a guild to better serve the interest of English-speaking poets in Canada.

Souster asked John Robert Colombo to become the group’s first organizer and he agreed. Meetings were held, often in Colombo’s home in Toronto, over the next year and the name League of Canadian Poets was adopted that first winter.

To publicize the fledgling organization and its members, the week of March 25-31, 1968, fifteen poets read at 24 public library locations with a gala Sunday reading at the Central Library. Audiences ranged from 4 to 575, and it became clear that the organization required elected officers and a mandate to follow up on the success of this first venture and to expand it nation-wide.

The first Annual General Meeting took place on the weekend of October 18-20, 1968. The registration fee of $5 included that year’s membership dues; 40 poets were present. Souster was elected President and Douglas Lochhead was elected Secretary, both for two year terms. By the time the League’s first Newsletter appeared in November 1968, the League had 67 members.

For the first years of its existence, the League concentrated on organizing poetry tours. Poetry festivals were held in Metro Toronto in the spring of 1969 and 1970, the predecessors of today’s (W)rites of Spring League readings.

In 1971 Gerald Lampert became the League’s first tour coordinator, his salary paid by a grant from what was then called the Province of Ontario Council for the Arts (POCA), and Arlene Lampert the first Executive Secretary. At the same time, the Canada Council granted $10,000 to sponsor a poetry tour by 23 poets who gave 10 readings at 10 universities across the country. In addition, some 70-80 readings were given in Ontario high schools, funding coming from POCA. League membership now stood at 78 poets. In 1971, annual membership fees were raised to $7.50 per year.

Over the next several years, League members debated, discussed, and voted on issues ranging from salaries to membership dues to membership criteria. The mid-seventies saw a great rise in League programming and media. Who’s Who in the League of Canadian Poets, a catalogue of League member, was published and distributed to libraries, media, bookstores, and educational institutions. Associate, Honorary, and Life membership categories were introduced, and membership fees were raised to $50 per year.

In 1982, over 20 members of the League brought a motion to the AGM to establish the Feminist Caucus, a committee that would “examine the status of and the opportunities for women in the field of Canadian Poetry.”

Just one year later, in 1983, spoken word and dub poetry became a contentious issue among League members and leadership, as it was debated whether the oral, lyric art form was poetry, song, or theatrical experience. After much debate, membership criteria were expanded to include dub and spoken word poets.

The late 80s saw the establishment of the League’s first national poetry contest, which published 50 winners in an anthology titled Garden Varieties. The 9^th annual contest, held in 1995, received over 4,500 entries and raised $27,000 for the League. In addition to this contest, the League also founded the Pat Lowther Memorial Award and the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award.

In 1992, the Feminist Caucus celebrated its 10^th anniversary, and established its Living Archives Series, a collection of contributions to feminist thought, discussion of sexual politics, literary theory, and women’s history as experienced or shared in, during, and through the panels organized by the Caucus at League AGMs.

By the mid-90s, the League was sharing a Toronto office with the Playwrights Union of Canada and the Periodical Writers Association of Canada, and was working hard to stabilize revenue streams while facing potentially massive cuts to government funding.

In 1998, the League celebrated National Poetry Month for the first time.

The early 2000s were dedicated to stabilizing the administration of the League, reducing debt, and increasing member engagement. Strategies were developed for popularizing National Poetry Month, growing the membership, and fund development, but in 2003 were faced with severe financial issues, forcing staff and program cuts.

Fundraising efforts through the 2000s and early 2010s were able to recover from accumulated debt, and support the establishment of many new programs, including the Jessamy Stursberg Poetry Prize for young adults, the Raymond Souster Award, the PK Page Mentorship program, and the Anne Szumigalski Lecture Series.

2015 brought about the start of a major staff turnover, which brought new eyes to the League’s programs and finances, just before we celebrated our 50th anniversary in 2016.

The latter half of the 2010s prioritized redeveloping community partnerships, reviewing membership needs and concerns, and strengthening funder relations while growing programming and increasing national member access to League benefits.