Jon Whyte Mind Over Mountains

"Post-modernism was nice while it lasted, I believe. Thank goodness it's over." So wrote Jon Whyte, a contrarian and poet ahead of his time. From the late 1960s to his untimely death in 1992, Banff's Jon Whyte was a guiding spirit among those who loved the arts and the Rockies. Though variously a filmmaker, bookseller, publisher, local historian, museum-keeper, critic and columnist, Jon Whyte was always and most fundamentally a poet. Jon Whyte: Mind Over Mountainstraces his poetic career from his early years as part of Edmonton's fertile 1960s literary community, through his acclaimed 1982 poem Homage: Henry Kelsey, to Fells of Brightness, his visionary evocation of the "Shining Mountains." Complemented with photographs and artwork reproductions, Jon Whyte: Mind Over Mountainsintroduces previously unpublished work along with his best-known writings and includes a foreword by longtime friend and writer Myrna Kostash.

Editor Harry Vandervlist teaches modern and contemporary literature at the University of Calgary.