Book excerpt: Like many Maritime thinkers and writers, R. J. (Roderick Joseph) MacSween grew up in conditions of poverty and hardship. Born of Gaelic-speaking Scots living on the shores of the Bras d'Or Lake in Cape Breton, ordained a Roman Catholic priest, recruited to teach at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, he established the first creative writing course in a Canadian university. MacSween was founder of The Antigonish Review, a leading literary journal and he influenced the careers of writers like Alistair MacLeod, Sheldon Currie and Lyndon MacIntyre as well as thousands of students from several generations. Shortly after his death, MacSween was eulogized as Canada's "great unknown poet." The Forgotten World is a literary biography that examines the life and work of this relatively unknown, enigmatic and gifted man from Cape Breton.