Robert Arthur Douglas Ford has had a distinguished career in the Canadian diplomatic service to which his poetic career has been secondary. His long absences from Canada have caused him to remain outside contemporary trends and movements in Canadian poetry, so that his poetry is more international in flavor than much written by Canadian poets, particularly as he has shown a wide-ranging interest in the poetry of the countries in which he has worked in Canadian embassies.

Ford, the son of Arthur Rutherford Ford, a journalist, and May Lavinia Scott Ford, was born in Ottawa and educated in London, Ontario, at the University of Western Ontario, where he studied English literature and history, receiving a B.A. in 1937. His postgraduate work in history (M.A., 1939) was undertaken at Cornell University and from 1938 to 1940 he taught in Cornell's history department. In 1946 he married Maria Thereza Gomes. In the preface...