Canadian regional poet of the Maritime Provinces and the New England region of the United States who is remembered chiefly for poignant love poems and one or two rhapsodies in celebration of nature.

Educated at Fredericton Collegiate and at the University of New Brunswick, in Fredericton, Carman also attended lectures at the universities of Oxford and Edinburgh and at Harvard.

In 1890 he went to New York City and for two decades earned a living doing editorial work on various journals. Between 1893 and 1905 he published nearly 20 volumes of verse, including Low Tide on Grand Pré (1893); three series of Songs from Vagabondia (1894, 1896, 1901), written in collaboration with Richard Hovey, a poet whom he had met at Harvard; and Sappho (1904), improvisations based on the Greek fragments of Sappho. He also wrote several prose works on nature, art, and the human personality.