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The Essential Elizabeth Brewster
Despite an impressive post-secondary education and a body of work that spans more than twenty books and seven decades, Elizabeth Brewster’s quiet humility in the face of ‘all that tradition’ of the Western literary canon belies her contribution to Canada’s cultural history. Perhaps fittingly, her poems demonstrate a sense of isolation, a quest for selfhood, a desire to understand and to be understood. Often conversational in tone, her poems are direct and characterized by a deliberate economy of language and freedom from the restrictions of traditional form. Editor Ingrid Ruthig examines the aesthetic touchstones, stylistic shifts and thematic range in the poetry of a woman ‘whose work is included in critical anthologies while her name is missing from their introductions.’ The Essential Poets Series presents the works of Canada’s most celebrated poets in a package that is beautiful, accessible and affordable. The Essential Elizabeth Brewster is the twenty-second volume in the increasingly popular series.
New Contexts of Canadian Criticism
Times change, lives change, and the terms we need to describe our literature or society or condition—what Raymond Williams calls “keywords”—change with them. Perhaps the most significant development in the quarter-century since Eli Mandel edited his anthology Contexts of Canadian Criticism has been the growing recognition that not only do different people need different terms, but the same terms have different meanings for different people and in different contexts. Nation, history, culture, art, identity—the positions we take discussing these and other issues can lead to conflict, but also hold the promise of a new sort of community. Speaking of First Nations people and their literature, Beth Brant observes that “Our connections … are like the threads of a weaving. … While the colour and beauty of each thread is unique and important, together they make a communal material of strength and durability.” New Contexts of Canadian Criticism is designed to be read, to work, in much the same manner.
The Exile's Papers
The culmination of decades of effort, Wayne Clifford’s The Exile’s Papers is a four-part poetic journey that explores narrative duplicity, familial and romantic relationships, the correlation between love, sin and life, and finally, the notion that human life cannot be explained—or saved. In this fourth and final volume of the sonnet sequence, Just Beneath Your Skin, the Dark Begins, the exiled poet adopts the role of the skeptic, calling into question religion and science, myth and history. Truth is subjective, beauty cannot be articulated, and redemption rests in the acceptance of one’s end. In this bleak, unfathomable, unknowable and inexpressible world, the exile’s struggles to live, to love, and to find meaning are bitterly honest and intimately familiar. With endlessly varying sonnets ranging from the surreal to the straightforward, the mythic to the narrative, this volume of The Exile’s Papers unequivocally proves Clifford’s mastery of poetic form.
The Essential Earle Birney
Over the course of a career spanning five decades, Canadian poet, novelist and playwright Earle Birney produced some of Canada’s best-known poems. The Essential Earle Birney contains a selection of his pivotal works, including early break-out successes; nuanced, mid-career lyrics; avant-garde experiments; and beautiful, deceptively simple love poetry. From ‘David’ to ‘Bushed’ to ‘Anglo-Saxon Street’, this indispensable collection reaffirms Birney’s position as a key figure in modern Canadian poetry. The Essential Poets Series presents the works of Canada’s most celebrated poets in a package that is beautiful, accessible, and affordable. The Essential Earle Birney is the 10th volume in the series.
Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen has aimed high: to be all Jewish heroes at once. Like Jacob, he struggled with angels. Like David, he sang psalms and seduced women. Like Abraham, he moved from place to place and remained a stranger everywhere. But he never ceased doing what he did best: stepping into avalanches and reviving our hearts. From Montreal and New York to the Greek island of Hydra, Leonard Cohen: The Man Who Saw the Angels Fall follows the singer's cosmopolitan life and examines his perpetual dialogues with God, with himself, and with hotel rooms. After twenty years of research, Christophe Lebold, who spent time with the poet in Los Angeles, delivers a stimulating analysis of Cohen's life and art. G...
Canada on the Threshold of the 21st Century
This collection contains a selection of papers presented a the very First All-European Canandian Studies Conference that took place in The Hague, October 24-27, 1990. This unique meeting took place for the first time in the history of Canadian Studies. The focus of the papers is on the future rather than the past and it took place at a moment in time when Canada went through major crises that raised serious doubts about the country s future. The papers of this volume explore the main issues and problems that Canada faces. The volume contains sections on demography, environmental problems, economic transformations, Canadian identity, political power structure, aboriginal issues and Canada s international relations. As a whole the book takes stock where Canada stands and where it is going.
The Essential Eugene McNamara
Eugene McNamara’s poetry ponders the textures and contradictions of his adopted city: Windsor, Ontario. Most comfortable in small, non-eloquent, delinquent, unpopular and wayward places, McNamara’s poems display abiding empathy with the inhabitants of these locales, conveying raw emotion through deceptively simple lines in which ‘voices cry wait / we didn’t want this / and the wind slams the words / around the corners of the empty / buildings down the empty / streets.’ The result is a selection offering poems of humility and grace that empathize rather than intellectualize. The Essential Poets Series presents the works of Canada’s most celebrated poets in a package that is beautiful, accessible and affordable. The Essential Eugene McNamara is the twenty-fourth volume in this increasingly popular series.
Metamorphadox
In a small corner of what was once known as North America, in the not-too-distant future, Neo-Toronto emerges as a prosperous island enclave after decades of war and unrest. In this world, knowledge is downloaded, learning is obsolete, cybernetic communication is the norm and even time travel is within reach. Citizens wholeheartedly embrace a doctrine of immortality, hoping to achieve Singularity—a state of autonomy so complete that human contact is rendered unnecessary. Jarrett Heckbert’s Metamorphadox presents a cautionary tale of a society that loses touch with physical reality. This suite of 81 wood engravings chronicles the chilling journey toward posthumanity in a dystopian future-world in which experience is always mediated and reality is undeniably, inescapably virtual.
Jack Chambers' Red and Green
In 1968, Canadian artist and filmmaker Jack Chambers was diagnosed with leukemia. Faced with his own mortality, Chambers began a programme of research into the nature of his own immortality. From that starting point the artist embarked on a nine-year journey that would ultimately take him to the end of his days. In his search, Chambers consulted many sources: philosophers, scientists, poets, priests, mystics and clairvoyants. Using the metaphor of the complementary-colour contrast of red and green, Chambers examined life’s inherent paradoxes, resolutely searching for synthesis. What resulted was ‘Red and Green’, a collage of quotations and ideas – a visual and literary mosaic – photocopied and diligently pasted into ring binders. The manuscript called ‘Red and Green’ has spent the greater part of its existence closeted in a studio, a basement and an archive. Today, Tom Smart, with remarkable care and persistence, presents Jack Chambers’ Red and Green, Chambers’ final thoughts on the purpose of the artist in society.
