Farhang
Book One
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781770417519
- Publish Date
- Sep 2023
- List Price
- $21.95
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781778522307
- Publish Date
- Sep 2023
- List Price
- $14.99
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Description
One of CBC Books poetry collections to watch in 2023
Farhang honors the people, places, and things Patrick Woodcock has seen while working as a migrant writer, volunteer, and teacher for almost three decades. This book is the first of three that will celebrate, memorialize, or eulogize the myriad moments that impacted his life while also shaping the shade and content of his writing. Beginning in Poland in 1994 and ending in the hamlet of Paulatuk in the Northwest Territories in 2022, Farhang travels the globe through Lithuania, Russia, Iceland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, the Kurdish North of Iraq, Azerbaijan, Tanzania, Kenya, and Rwanda. From the salt mines in Wieliczka to the dirt paths to the Baraa government school in Tanzania, where he volunteered, Woodcock has tried to honor the moment before it becomes muddled, dulled, or romanticized. Some of the poems are about friends or students, others are about the cracked knuckles of strangers, the crawling and the abandoned. Art, language, architecture, politics, and the suffering from politicians left unchecked are also a focus. Sadly, many of the poems are for friends and locations lost to either time, neglect, or warfare. Farhang tries to chronicle some of what no longer exists or only lives on in the poet’s head and soul.
About the author
Contributor Notes
After volunteering for two years in Arusha, Tanzania, at Baraa Primary School and two years in Paulatuk, NT, for CUSO International, Patrick Woodcock now resides in Iqaluit, NU. While completing the manuscript for Farhang Book Two, he is the instructor/coordinator for the national charitable literary organization United for Literacy.
Excerpt: Farhang: Book One (by (author) Patrick Woodcock)
10. He placed his mother on the balcony in winter for a few litas.
(The world’s largest goldfish, Carassius auratus,
was discovered on a tenement balcony in Vilnius,
Lithuania in 1995. ‘Motina’ as it was called,
was evicted so her son could rent her tank
to a more affluent and ornamental clownfish.)
Still awake at 5am, the wreckage sat and stared
at the imperfect winter morning, pressing his nose
on the window to thaw a fisheye through the ice.
He watched the snow begin to shuffle, rise and roam
from roof to balcony and back, squinting to admire it
darting and dancing, turning in upon itself before
bursting skyward like a white stork.
At first it was a few locks of alabaster hair that fell
from under the orange tarp on the balcony, flapping
in the wind like a torn dorsal spine; as if the candles
not the flames had decided to let their essence arc
and flit. He was forced to search
for a lighter to fight back against the wind and snow
recrystallizing his porthole. As the opening
enlarged, five smoke-stained fingers, like elongated fry,
emerged to hold down the tarp.
Other winds from other lanes arrived to constrain her
before rattling him and the window frame: Let her go.
He let her go.
Editorial Reviews
“Woodcock, himself a talent...like many writers, seem a quiet presence in a noisy, unforgiving world, a balm of sorts, avuncular and steady but in truth, also like many—hell, most—writers of of any consequence, the words he proffers to the page limn the marrow of human existence with a keen, worldly, unsparing heart.” — Stereo Embers Magazine
“His distinctive voice makes him a unique writer working in the contemporary landscape. No one celebrates life and eulogies death as well as the Canadian poet Patrick Woodcock. Farhang Book One is a must-read for anyone interested in the state of the world and the art of poetry” (Translation). — Phenomenology Literary Journal (Serbia)
“The poems are so well written, engaging and packed with powerful imagery and ideas.” — The Book Lover’s Boudoir
“Woodcock’s poems not only capture the moment and myriad of emotions, but like all great poetry, they expand upon it and take it somewhere unique yet still universal.” — The Galway Review
“Farhang: Book One by Patrick Woodcock is a stunning and devastating collection that will make a lasting impression.” — Savvy Verse & Wit Blog
“If the other two books are as moving as this first one, then Woodcock will have to be considered a poet of considerable standing.” — The Lake
