Looking for some kind of stat on the best selling book of poetry by a
Canadian author: his or her first published work, excluding famous
musicians. How many copies sold in the first year?

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Request for Question Clarification by chromedome-ga on 12 Apr 2004 19:06 PDT

Hi, David!

A quick question for you.  When you say, "excluding famous musicians,"
are you deliberately excluding Leonard Cohen (first known as a poet,
then a musician)?  Or do you simply want to weed out books of
lyrics/poems by people primarily known as musicians, and not as poets
per se?

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Clarification of Question by davidincanada-ga on 13 Apr 2004 05:44 PDT

Hi,
I wanted to exclude celebrities who may have written a volume of
poetry after their fame. Gordon Downie of the Tragically Hip, for
example. Yes, I believe Cohen published poetry before he became famous
as a songwriter. But how well did his book fare? Or Margaret Atwood,
or Michael Ondaatje, with their very first books of poetry before they
achieved fame as novelists. This may not be something publishers keep
records of, so I could settle for any stats at this point.