English-born Canadian poet whose writings, characterized by a rapid juxtaposition of contrasting images, reflect the influence of Dylan Thomas (Thomas, Dylan), W.H. Auden (Auden, W H), and T.S. Eliot (Eliot, T.S.) and register his response to Canadian landscapes and history.

Educated at the University of Oxford and Columbia University, Anderson settled in Montreal as a teacher and professor at McGill University from 1940 to 1950, when Canadian writing was emerging as a vigorous modern literature. He was instrumental in establishing the socially conscious literary magazine Preview; he also wrote sensuous descriptions of nature that revitalized traditional lyrical praise of the Canadian landscape. The collections A Tent for April (1945) and The White Centre (1946) were followed by The Colour as Naked (1953), which drew upon his Canadian experiences as well as life in Malaya (1950–52) and England. (He lived his later life in both Canada and England.) Search Me (1957) is autobiographical, and Over the Alps: Reflections on Travel and Travel Writing (1969) is concerned mainly with the grand tours taken in the 18th and 19th centuries by the Scottish biographer James Boswell, by the author of Vathek, William Beckford, and by Lord Byron. Anderson's last published work was Return to Canada: Selected Poems (1977).