Feel Happier In Nine Seconds - Linda Besner (Coach House Books)

Today's book of poetry:
Feel Happier In Nine Seconds.  Linda Besner.  Coach House Books.  Toronto, Ontario.  2017.

Today's book of poetry feels, with no disrespect intended, that Linda Besner's Feel Happier In Nine Seconds reads like a future television sit-com that we are all going to love.  These poems whip by at a punchline per second pace.  And make no mistake, Besner is as funny as she is clever, she is also juxtapositionally jolly.

But it is not all fun and games in Feel Happier In Nine Seconds world.  Linda Besner isn't above putting a dramatic ending in the proceedings to make a point.  Besner has one of those elastic imaginations, a time-shifting ESP at her sonic fingertips and, as if that's not enough, these poems are outrageously entertaining.

Panting Under Ripped Parasol's Lacy Enclosure

In an elopement no one noticed,

              I fled the public lecture with my lover's

                              espadrilles. It was the pinnacle of the tulip season,

me hardly bulletproof but for the periwinkle

              in my buttonhole, my roll of crepe paper,

                             and the rupee bundle under my petticoat.

My chevalier lay with his picnic basket

              and pince-nez, sumptuously crumpling

                            the Riesling label.

'Don't parade on my rain,' he begged.

              But I've been propelled to unreason

                             like a spectral helicopter.

I'd rather be  LARPing. My utopia?

               A luau before yuletide ships

                             rammed the island. Before

puritanical undertakers in period drapery

               unclasped their popsicle rods

                             to dripple into the Pacific.

Though I sculpt my emancipation

              from a rockface trimmed with pelicans, I know

                             I'll long forever for my lover's lotioned elbows.

💫💫💫

This here is superior word play, mastery of a sort, Linda Besner is clearly two-hundred and thirty-two years wise inside of her disguise.  This is mature writing, perhaps Besner has been reincarnated?  If that's the case I'll pro-offer a scenario:  Besner is part Emily Dickinson, part Dorothy Parker, part Anne Sexton and with a modicum of my personal heroine, the under-rated and mostly unknown Linda Pyke, thrown in.  A better writer than Today's book of poetry wouldn't have to resort to comparisons to accurately report on Feel Happier In Nine Seconds with precision and flair.

There's no denying that sometimes reading Besner it feels as though she is playing with the rest of us mere mortals, patient, while laying out easy to follow tracks to her light speed wit and world view.  Besner even has a few bawdy, nee romantic frissons.

Midway through Feel Happier In Nine Seconds there is a psychedelic monologue of epic proportion, it is colour coded and almost certainly candy coated.  It's a bit like the first ride you ever took on a motorcycle without a helmet.  

Linda Besner will entertain you, guaranteed.

First Kiss

The famous nonconformist

whose camper van I left

my pants in says I'm a rube

who's never seen the inside

of an apple seed.

That I'm a shade

overruffling the lamp

he can see is turned

on. Imagine my surprise

when, stepping outside,

I ran bang into his parents'

cows. Bessie, does it hurt

when common trilliums

graze your personhood?

Your infinity sign of flies

reties my shoelace lows.

I raise a stranger's trace

to clear the nimbus

of snot from your mouth.

💫💫💫

Our office reading was splendid today.  We did finally hear from the newly wed Milo, our new silent partner, and Kathryn his bride, our former intern turned Jr. Editor, who will be returning from their pilgrimage/honeymoon in San Francisco and City Lights Bookstore.  Today's book of poetry was present at their lovely nuptials before they slipped away.  They chose to go small and quiet and asked that Today's book of poetry respect their wishes and not give anything away.  Done.

The rest of the Today's book of poetry staff wishes they all the best and will, of course, fete them properly upon their poetic return.

Linda Besner's Feel Happier In Nine Seconds was like chum to piranhas for the morning read.  We just made the office air churn with these wildly playful poems.

Vacuum Meets Harmonica

in a motel bed nostril to nostril

where panflute madrigals play

on golem bones, a numbing verve

squeals the SOS of unmoored clarinets,

ushers yellow leaves to hollow logs,

haunts a house with sixteen doors,

neighbours of ascending heights

borrowing hairdryers, borrowing ice,

and fans the scarves of spin doctors;

sunken foghorns cue the skirmishing

vapour of exhumed gladiators,

their helmets crested with spinning

weather vanes, a mummer's dirty

squall-nozzle flutters the blinds

while dervishes sweep the carpet

of its mackerel sky, then speed

to scatter a passing gale of mary's hail,

concuss the hockey team, and pull

through regal cyclone the heaviest

tractor, a humbling valve

that whirls off modesty,

two raging female ends,

that glorious moment when

💫💫💫

Today's book of poetry is no genius for telling you that Linda Besner has a certain grasp of her own genius, certainly a hand firmly on the ring.  Feel Happier In Nine Seconds is proper solid.  Besner can burn any recipe she wants.

Today's book of poetry is already setting the table in wait for her next adventure.  We are sure it is going to spectacular.

Linda Besner

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Linda Besner is the author of The Id Kid, published in 2011 by Véhicule Press and named one of the National Post’s Best Poetry Books of the Year. Her poetry and journalism have appeared in numerous magazines.

BLURBS

Brave art, raw not cooked, a pure pleasure to experience.’ 

     – Globe and Mail

‘Besner's imagination doesn't appear to have an upper or outer limit – Reading her poems is a bad trip and a transformational experience.’ 

     – Ken Babstock

‘Besner is one of the funniest poets writing in this country.’     – National Post

Linda Besner

Poets reading their own poems.

"Moonlight on Komatzu Extractor."

Video courtesy: Howpedestrian

chbooks.com

734

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration.

Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie - Jay Ritchie (Coach House Books)

Today's book of poetry:
Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie.  Jay Ritchie.  Coach House Books.  Toronto, Ontario.  2017.

"like an inner tube at a pool party

nostalgic for asphalt."

                                                                                    "Upcycle" - Jay Ritchie

Jay Ritchie has reimagined what Richard Brautigan might be saying were he alive and living in Montreal.  Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie does not emulate Brautigan so much as doff the hat in admiration as it continues along in its Jay Ritchie way.  No disservice to the esteemed Mr. Brautigan, Today's book of poetry holds his work in high regard - but Mr. Ritchie is a richer serving.

Today's book of poetry generally has a difficult time with poetry carved from surreal dreams but like my hero, Stuart Ross, Jay Ritchie operates with such efficiency and sleight of hand that you are at his mercy.  These poems are tangential superheroes and dream-thought riddled with reason.

Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie tries to wrestle the norm out of the daily grind and succeeds with a Cool Hand Luke grin.

The Waiting Room

requires a series

of short commitments,

the way Highway

I needs to 

be reimagined after

each pirouetting pine

tree, the way

an extension cord

needs to be

wound eight times

before it is

a noose. I

made a promise

in the driveway

not to go

inside until I

had sunk twenty-three

baskets consecutively. Light

has a special

way of falling

into polygons in

the waiting room.

The sewage truck

is idling outside

the walk-in clinic

beside the public

library. People fall

out of my

life like oranges

off the back

of a truck.

Residents of Heatherglen

Housing Co-operative Ltd.

were not informed.

A paint stain

on the window

starts to look

modern. The rehabbed

juvenile delinquent said,

Building a house

is just a

series of small

tasks that amount

to something big.

I was out

there in the

driveway until dark.

Here, the Venn

diagram made by

the water's surface

and lip of

the glass. It

was a promise

I made to

luck so that

luck would be

promised to me.

...

Truth be told, and Today's book of poetry always tries to tell the truth, some of Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie may have escaped our feeble grasp.  When I passed Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie around the office before the morning read the response was universal: everyone loved the journey but no two of us ended up in the same place.  Today's book of poetry likes to read poetry that takes the reader out of their comfort zone and Ritchie succeeds.  Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie uses sly humour and the reader is never quite certain if Ritchie's witty asides are detachment or genuine and gentle wonder.

Today's book of poetry had no problem at all believing whatever Ritchie had to say.  These poems rang true, from start to finish, like a metronome.

Loud Familiar Sound

At the end of the year with my bags asking to be let in to the

present. Single-family detached homes with comparable square

footage curve gradually with the cul-de-sac, as usual. Did you

see the addition to the business park? Nothing hurts like not being

in on the joke. My friends tell me I have a tendency to distance

myself from friends, which is troubling. Walking home involved

a Walmart, an overpass, a business park, real estate, a Catholic

elementary school, and a cosmic sense of purpose determined

by faulty or burnt-out street lamps. This is how I remember it:

I learned geometry from rooftops. I might carry my laptop over

the back deck in the morning with a cup of coffee and consider

how a rainbow's favourite high is gasoline. I might be closer to

what I was walking toward and further from where I wanted to

be. I'm unsure if the leaves are a part of the plan. Airport security

said, The easiest way out is to look for an entrance.

...

Our morning read was a rapid-fire affair.  Ritchie's poems elevated the mood, the sun was actually shining in through the windows and had Mr. Ritchie heard our din I'm certain he would have been cheered.

Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie is the genuine article.  Ritchie is playing the long game, he strings things out onto a high wire, adds a bicycle, and then a beach ball, and then the elephant in the room jumps onto the wire.  Everything ricochets skyward, airborne, juxtaposed, upside down and clearly doomed until Ritchie juggles them back down to the wire, each one precariously balanced in the good graces of the others.  

Jay Ritchie is welcome in the Today's book of poetry poetry kitchen any time.  Ritchie can burn the house down.

Celebration of Life

Every mourner was given

a blue, yellow,

or green helium-filled balloon

and was pushed out

into the snow-covered field.

Releasing the balloon

into the troposphere

was a symbolic gesture

for the final stage

in the grieving process:

acceptance, or 'letting go.'

How many leatherback

turtles are going to die

from this mass act of littering?

I had done a project on

leatherbacks in Grade 7.

It was the fourth consecutive day

of putting my suit on, and the fourth

consecutive day of putting

ice cream in my coffee.

Three people had died

in one day, and for three days

there was one funeral per day -

except today is different, today

is a celebration of life.

I unparked the SUV

from the half-frozen mud.

What is going to happen

to everyone's nice shoes?

The nonsmokers look so natural

holding their cigarettes.

I wanted to clarify some negative

comments I had made, but I did not

expect to encounter absence,

which is no encounter at all,

just a persistent humming

at the highest audible register

and its root note at the lowest,

making a chord

with idling city maintenance

vehicles. The possibility

that photographs would be

insufficient occurred to everyone

at once, it was unanimously decided

someone would make a DVD.

The Rocky Mountains

had a better understanding

of us, they had seen

the oil barons as heroes

and were less anxious, they said,

Squint, you can see tomorrow

through tiny pinholes in the air.

...

Today's book of poetry was thoroughly entertained by Jay Ritchie, he certainly cheered us up.  Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie may offer some of the most original poetry you've read this year.

Jay Ritchie

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jay Ritchie was born in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and lives in Montreal, Quebec. Cheer Up, Jay Ritchie is his first full-length collection.

BLURBS

‘With their clever – but never glib – concision of image, and emotional directedness, these poems actually make me feel something, and that is something I really enjoy.’
     – Rebecca Wolff, author of One Morning—

‘Ritchie throws black holes on the wall, disappears through them. His poems are like dreams dreamed mid-movement, just before something happens, as if light, buildings, breath, parakeets, hope, haircuts, Montreal, and art-making are all fragments of the same epiphany.’
     – Sean Michaels, Giller Prize-winning author of Us Conductors

‘Charming, funny, and often elegant. This is a formidable collection.’
     – Ben Fama, author of Fantasy

Jay Ritchie

Jay Winston Ritchie - Poetry (part1) @ Bain Saint-Michel, Montreal

Video: Neil Corcoran

chbooks.com 

658

DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration

Tumour - Evelyn Lau (Oolichan Books)

Today's book of poetry:
Tumour.  Evelyn Lau.  Oolichan Books.  Fernie, British Columbia.  2016.

Tumour is the third poetry title by Evelyn Lau that Today's book of poetry has shared with our faithful readers.  We figure you have to feel the same way about her work as we do.  Had Milo, our head Tech, go to the stacks and besides Living Under Plastic (Oolichan Books, 2010) and A Grain of Rice (Oolichan Books, 2012) which you can read about here:

http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.ca/2013/05/a-grain-of-rice-evelyn-lau.html

http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.ca/2013/10/living-under-plastic-evelyn-lau.html

We also had You Are Not Who You Claim (Porcepic Books, 1990), Oedipal Dreams (Coach House Press, 1992) and In The House of Slaves (Coach House Press, 1994).  These other Evelyn Lau titles were on the shelves but came out to play at our morning read.  More about that later.

Evelyn Lau has become, in Today's book of poetry's estimation, a "can't miss" poet.  This reader knows for a certainty that there will be ample reward for any time spent invested between the covers of an Evelyn Lau poetry book.

Tumour does not let us down.  Lau navigates some difficult water with various family relationships.  We know Lau is working for harmonious solutions but the usual barriers of personality, culture, vanity and ego have to run their indelicate course.

Vagina

The indignity of seeing you change,

even you. Your lips used to be springy

to the touch, a miniature trampoline,

a little fat cushion of flesh. It seems someone

let all the stuffing out. Now the inner labia,

once so tidy and trim, are stretched

and distended, and sometimes poke out

like the tip of a tongue in a cruel tease.

That's all you want me to say about you.

Lately you've grown reticent as a maiden aunt

in your middle age, desiring flannel nightgowns

and ten o'clock bedtimes. So open to proposition

in your prime, it won't be long before

you grow a white fur, prepare for hibernation.

...

Lau is putting all her excellent cards on the table.  She will go there.  The title poem in Tumour is about a dear Aunt and her end.  Very succinctly Lau rambles over the big three, LOVE, SEX & DEATH.  Lau knows that ultimately these are what we really think about and her objectivity is bracing.

Today's book of poetry admires how quickly Lau gets to the important true thing in her poems, she names it.  This is mature poetry free of the frivolous nature of flirtation, Lau gets to what we really want/need to say/hear.

Ancient History

All I wanted was the small grace

of sleep, that swift darkening.

But Ativan led me through the dream gates

to the childhood house on Cambridge Street--

the bang of the metal mailbox,

the lurch of the key in the lock,

the sweaty sheen of linoleum.

Shoes lined against the wall in a mad precision.

My stomach flip-flopped in fear--

somewhere in the house, the mother,

like an escaped tarantula. I am shrieking

in my sleep, a horror film with the sound

turned down, the milk duvet an avalanche

stuffing ears and nostrils with snow,

the scrap-metal sky a dun glow, fading.

Finally, words shatter the surface:

You didn't protect me--

the indignant wail of a four-year-old

choked out in a thick-tongued mumble,

a rasp into the sour breath of the pillow.

Would you believe it?

In a few months I'll be forty.

...

Mortality is a mean bastard.  You know it is out there but you really don't feel the full weight on your shoulders until you see those you love fall to mortality's certain charms.  Evelyn Lau has a voice that knows.  This voice has the experience of a life of extremes.

Our morning read was a gas.  With our six Evelyn Lau titles on hand and in full rotation it was a lesson in perspective, perseverance and passion.

Remembrance Day

On the eleventh hour of 11/11/11,

I am at Winners with the other bargain hunters,

the early Christmas shoppers, the bored.

It's soggy, miserable out. The sky

has swallowed all the light, sunk

into a greyed puff of dirty down.

Trenches of rainwater in the road,

burnt leaves mulching underfoot,

mourning of seagulls. A clerk's voice

breaks into the piped-in '80s music

to remind us of the day. She stumbles

over a few lines of "Flanders Fields",

announces a minute of silence.

Who knew sixty seconds could be

this long? We rotate round the racks

of marked-down designer clothes

in the uncomfortable stillness.

I glance around--there's nothing

on anyone's face, just a slight frown

of concentration as a sweater slips

off a hanger, a flinch of irritation

at being bumped by a stranger's cart

from behind. My friend Szeming

who was ten years old during the Japanese

occupation of Hong Kong remembers

the meagre two meals a day, going without

the luxury of socks or sweets. Remembers

the crowd peering into a bucket

on the sidewalk--a street urchin's head,

discarded after the rest of him

had been used for food. The relentless rain

drills the windows. In the distance,

the jet roar of thunder. What a relief

to be inside this bunker, bathed

in artificial heat and light, training our sights

on the perfect winter coat, holiday dress.

Finally, the tinny music cranks up again

and we relax, relieved of the burden

of remembering. Some young woman

is singing about love, how love

is like a battlefield.

...

Today's book of poetry has been a big fan of Evelyn Lau for a long time.  Tumour is another fine example of why we always have time for this tough and tender poet.  She always finds our heart.

Evelyn Lau

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Evelyn Lau was born in Vancouver in 1971. She is the author of several volumes of poetry, two works of non-fiction, two short story collections and a novel. Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid, published when she was 18, was a Canadian best seller and was made into a CBC movie starring Sandra Oh in her first major role. Lau’s prose books have been translated into a dozen languages worldwide. You Are Not Who You Claim won the Milton Acorn People’s Poetry Award; Oedipal Dreams was nominated for the Governor-General’s Award.

Her work has appeared in over a hundred literary magazines, garnering four Western Magazine Awards and a National Magazine Award. She has also won the Air Canada Award for Most Promising Writer and the Vantage Women of Originality Award. Her poems have been included in the Best American Poetry and Best Canadian Poetry series. She has read from and discussed her work at literary festivals and universities around the world; she presently freelances as a mentor to aspiring writers through UBC’s booming Ground and SFU’s Writing and Publishing Program.

Evelyn Lau

Reading her poem "Fatal Attraction"

Video: Vancouver Poetry Slam

oolichan.com

649

DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration

Dead White Men - Shane Rhodes (Coach House Books)

Today's book of poetry:
Dead White Men.  Shane Rhodes.  Coach House Books.  Toronto, Ontario.  2017.

Shane Rhodes Dead White Men is quite unlike almost any book of poetry we usually see here at Today's book of poetry.  Even more to the point Dead White Men falls outside of the parameters of the poetry we usually celebrate.  Put on your thinking caps please.

Shane Rhodes is swimming in some pretty deep water.  Today's book of poetry found that Shane Rhodes "Notes" at the end of the collection were very helpful when considering his poems.  We want to share them here:

"Early European narratives of exploration and contact with the 'New World' often intertwine the languages of scientific discovery and colonization and bring along with them all the attendant European concerns of race, commercial exploitation, and male domination over muted landscapes

and the peoples who inhabited them.  In writing and researching Dead White Men, I was interested in looking to these past stories (especially those focused on North America and the South Pacific), not to add to the fictions of past white heroism but to better understand the problematic relationship between the stories, the mythologies they have become, and the lands and peoples they describe.  For many settlers, our understanding of the history of the land upon which we live is often limited to the names that have been given to it by past white explorers and the mythologies we have built up around exploration and discovery.  I wanted to use poetry to interrogate this past and the texts upon which it rests.

This is the mandate of this book.  This is the manner of its history."

So, Dead White Men, what is it?  This is a rhapsodic blend of William S. Burroughs style cut-ups and concrete poetry served up within a ballistic barrage of indictment against the status quo of white colonial power.  That and it fits between the covers just like a regular book.  Shane Rhodes isn't your run-of-the-mill poet, Dead White Men is not Milk and Honey.

Animal Electricity      

after Luigi Galvani

Little flames, fixed fires

that certain men give out

when walking

or when silk garments are donned

in a very dark chamber.

Latent in the livid integuments,

it is a difficult thing to be known

even with electrophore

of dried nerve and bone.

Upon the caloric animalcules

dissected, I employed

an electrical machine

so that an eel, if bisected

transversely, trembled its tail

when a metallic arc was applied.

With current, a frog (hook secured

to its spine) jumped vigorously about,

while the wings of a chaffinch

slightly contracted.

Even stricken with a pinch

of pear powder or pernicious gases

(sometimes mephitic, sometimes opium,

powdered nicotine and arsenic),

a newborn cat moved its legs --

a phenomenon not lacking

with the head cut off.

Vipers have not yet been tested.

From the house high in the air,

we erected an iron wire,

hung upon it prepared frogs

and the legs of warm animals.

The thing went according to our desire.

...

Canada has a great deal to do to undo and even more to make right with our First Nations.  Rhodes uses a wide brush to capture colonialism and the snakes of its progress beyond just the Canadian home grown variety.  Today's book of poetry are big fans of Rhodes, although he is more work than your average bear.  We wrote about Mr. Rhodes X back in November of 2013 and you can see that blog here:

http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.ca/2013/11/poems-anti-poems-shane-rhodes.html

Our morning read here in the Today's book of poetry offices was an almost sombre affair today, not much in the way of chucks and giggles in Rhodes incendiary condemnation.  But just to be clear, this is not your typical Sunday drive poetry fest, before it's over you'll find yourself upside down and backwards.

from page 110...

     Nothing special today unless the great coldness of the wind from the North is

     worth mentioning unless the entire air swimming with watery exhalations

     is news unless a dense fog exceeding thick is of interest unless dark Squals

     and Lightning are most curious things unknown in Europe unknown to

     me and these people unknown and dangerous but what Winds we have

     had this day set down in the journal beneath a close-reefed Manitopsail

     which caused us to Tack several Times and paff within a cable's length of

     a very large ifland of ice (it appeared to be nothing elfe) we Serv'd Slops

     to the Men put on our winter rigging saw the footsteps of people fresh

     upon the sand which Painted the Boat with a Genteel breeze and the fog

     {o thick we could fcarce fee a man on the forecafile then a fresh Trade wind

      with heavy Albetrosses all wings and Tails so we hauled our courfes when

      there came along a boat with feveral Elkim'aux women and we traded

     wind with the people (I saw what I took and left them in Strings of beeds)

...

Today's book of poetry has to admit that there are often books of poetry that intimidate my intellect and understanding and Dead White Men is one of them.  That doesn't mean it wasn't riveting, it was.  And even more importantly Today's book of poetry believes Shane Rhodes is bleeding some necessary blisters, opening some festering wounds so that they can drain and heal.

White privilege has always extended to our histories, the way we write about our past.  Essential poetry like Shane Rhodes Dead White Men is another elemental step towards narrowing that damned gap.  White privilege will only be disassembled when white people recognize it exists and start measuring the costs.

More Translations of the Lappish Language

Their Words for Sounds

                       : a gently running stream whirring over river rocks

                       : an animal in the water splash

                       : wolves singing when I cry ass drunk

                       : a fire salt sprayed

                       : a bow when the arrows are shot out

                       : knocking as I roll down the hegyrs

                       : an empty vessel when tapped by two empty containers

                       : water falling in a fire

                       : a tree mouse gnawing Girr

                       : sand between your teeth or a ball stuck in a tube

                       : knocking a fish

                       :  a dog that flatters

                       :  noisily sipping like when someone eagerly drinks

                       : sometimes here this sound when the larynx nip slips

...

In the interest of full disclosure, Mr. Rhodes and I know each other.  You could even say we are friends.  We don't chum together but their is a sizable mutual respect, I hope.  

Today's book of poetry has long admired the poetry of Shane Rhodes, his dedication to the craft and his willingness to go further than most of the rest of us.  Rhodes isn't interested in the status quo at all.  Rhodes is all about breaking down walls and building new understanding.  Today's book of poetry is behind that all the way.  That and Rhodes is brilliant.

Shane Rhodes

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Shane Rhodes is the author of five books of poetry, and has won awards including an Alberta Book Award and the National Magazine Gold Award for Poetry. He lives in Ottawa, Ontario.

BLURBS

‘A provocative and galvanizing read … Riveting and dazzling invention is visible on almost every page: fonts shift size, language cascades and cleaves, and images disrupt order. Dead White Men should be widely read and taught.’
     – Eduardo C. Corral, author of Slow Lightning

‘Dead White Men is not only a searing indictment of colonialism but also a painful reminder of the violence that underpins the logic of exploration. Each poem strikes at the heart of the issue: there are often unarticulated, unacknowledged Indigenous presences here that have been flattened over by the lies and mirages of empty landscapes. Dead White Men is a stinging and difficult journey, and one that continues to remind us that stolen land has always been the most pressing concern for Indigenous peoples and settlers. This is an absolutely essential book.’
     – Jordan Abel, author of Injun

Shane Rhodes Reads

Video: Arc

chbooks.com

622

DISCLAIMERS

Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

We here at TBOP are technically deficient and rely on our bashful Milo to fix everything.  We received notice from Google that we were using "cookies"

and that for our readers in Europe there had to be notification of the use of those "cookies.  Please be aware that TBOP may employ the use of some "cookies" (whatever they are) and you should take that into consideration