Laurence Hutchman, in Writers' Words: Conversations with Eight Canadian Poets, interviews major poets of the modernist period: Ralph Gustafson, George Johnston, P.K. Page, Fred Cogswell, Louis Dudek, Al Purdy, Anne Szumigalski and James Reaney. They speak in depth about the challenges of the writing life, the complex evolution of their aesthetics, the mysterious nature of the writing process, and the origins of the poem.