Every October, when the Nobel Prizes are announced, readers receive a gift: we are reminded that literature is vast—vaster than empires, to coin a phrase. Chances are, the laureate for literature will be—at least for English-speaking readers—foreign in every sense. Even ardent book lovers might concede that they haven’t kept up with Elfriede Jelinek of Austria or Jon Fosse of Norway. How many of us were saving this year’s winner, Hungarian novelist László Krasznahorkai, for an especially rainy day? (And how many are pretending we knew his name all along?)

True, no one can read everything. There’s too little time. Not all books are translated, or translated well. Still, it’s salutary to remember the big picture. In Canada, the literary world tends to be inward-looking. It’s obvious why. For three-quarters of a century, the official position has been that if Canadians don’t support Canadian culture, no one will—and that some stage management is required. After all, American influence is overwhelming, while the United States and international markets are tough nuts to crack. In terms of consumers, Canada is tiny. So, the writing and publishing industries, like the arts in general, have been kept afloat by a robust system of government subsidies. The money is intended to get Canadian authors onto shelves. If a national literature exists, it’s been incentivized into being.

There’s plenty to praise about public arts funding. But cultural protectionism has made CanLit something of a closed loop. For most Canadian writers, the safest strategy has been to play the local game, aiming for domestic stability without worrying unduly about their reception abroad. This goes double for Canadian poets, who, without much hope of life-sustaining sales figures, measure success in small gradations of prestige and accomplishment. The field of Canadian poetry is effectively a conversation among peers. A sameness of style and concern always threatens to take root.

One of the pleasures of reading Contraband Bodies, the first book of poetry by Jide Salawu, is the sense that the conversation has been interrupted. Another delight is the happy eccentricity of the language: the poems sound unlike much of what is published in Canada today. Salawu is from Shao, Nigeria—some 300 kilometres from Lagos, according to Google Maps—and studies and teaches English and film at the University of Alberta. As he writes

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