Lochhead was still in the army when he attended a friend's wedding in Toronto. He visited the University of Toronto campus and suddenly decided to pursue post-graduate studies there in English. He wrote his thesis on the British poets of the First World War earning his Master's degree in 1947. His experiences in the Canadian military formed the basis for his 1984 book, "The Panic Field: Prose Poems" in which he explores "the ways of men, caught up in the sprawling net of the army."