J. Mark Smith

J. Mark Smith serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of English at MacEwan University, holding a continuing position since 2006 after prior teaching at York University (2000-2004). His academic foundation includes a PhD from the University of California, Irvine (1999) supervised by J. Hillis Miller, with MA and BA degrees from McGill University.

His educational background comprises:

• PhD in Literature, University of California, Irvine (1999)
• MA in Literature, McGill University
• BA in Literature, McGill University

Smith's research expertise spans Romantic, modernist, and contemporary poetry and poetics, with specialized focus on literary translation, creative writing (poetry and narrative non-fiction), and the historical evolution of linguistic usage. His current book project The Only Rule of Language investigates how poets, philologists, and lexicographers document language change through literary translation archives and historical dictionaries like the OED, addressing Shelleyan questions about poetry's transformative power on everyday language.

His scholarly publications from 2007-2025 reveal consistent engagement with Romantic and modernist figures (Wordsworth, De Quincey, Pound) while evolving toward broader linguistic philosophy. Key thematic threads include the relationship between poetic innovation and language change, elegiac structures, and rhetorical devices like apostrophe, demonstrating interdisciplinary connections between literary theory, philology, and cognitive linguistics.

His creative achievements include:

• Malahat Review's 2012 Open Season Award in poetry
• Publication of Notes for a Rescue Narrative (Oolichan, 2007)
• Inclusion in Best Canadian Poetry in English 2008

Smith actively mentors senior students through independent study projects and has significantly contributed to academic discourse through editorial work, notably co-editing Time in Time: Short Poems, Long Poems, and the Rhetoric of North American Avant-Gardism, 1963-2008 (McGill-Queen's University Press). His narrative non-fiction appears in Queen's Quarterly and Santa Monica Review, reflecting his integrated approach to scholarly and creative practice.