Description
Joseph Sherman was a poet of great verbal vigour and wide-ranging empathy. Rooted in his Jewish heritage and his Maritime roots, his poems offer unforgettable images of family life, natural settings and moments in history. They include both fine-tuned miniatures and expansive, multi-part poems. His diction ranges from common speech to rarely encountered language. The time is ripe for Sherman's majestic accomplishment in poetry to reach new readers.
About the authors
As a high-school student, Brian Bartlett was invited to join the Ice House Gang, so-called because they met in the University of New Brunswick's historic Ice House every Tuesday night to read their poetry and hone their talents. Amazed and delighted by Bartlett's gift for words, Robert Gibbs, Bill Bauer, Kent Thompson, and Alden Nowlan inspired him to become the accomplished artist he is today. He published his chapbook Finches for the Wake when he was only 18 years old. The next year, Brother's Insomnia was published as a New Brunswick Chapbook. Since this apprenticeship period, Bartlett has published six highly acclaimed collections: Cattail Week, Planet Harbor, Underwater Carpentry, Granite Erratics, The Afterlife of Trees, and Wanting the Day. His poetry has won Two Malahat Review Long Poem prizes, a fellowship to the Hawthornden Castle International Writers' Retreat in Scotland, and first prize in the 2000 Petra Kenney poetry awards. A talented writer of prose, Bartlett's essays, stories, and reviews have appeared in Books in Canada, Canadian Literature, The Fiddlehead, and Brick, as well as Best Canadian Stories and The Journey Prize Anthology. A native of Fredericton, New Brunswick, Bartlett spent 15 years in Montreal, studying at McGill and teaching at Concordia. Today, he teaches creative writing and literature at Saint Mary's University in Halifax.
Joseph Howard Sherman was a Jewish Canadian poet and visual arts editor. He was the author of nine books of poetry including Beautiful Veins, published by Acorn Press. He was born in Bridgewater, NS in 1945 and lived in Charlottetown where he is survived by his wife Ann Sherman. He was named to the Order of Canada in 2003.
