Although every poem in this book begins with the same first three words, each is a world unto itself. The poems range in subject from the intensely personal to the profoundly philosophical. Some poems are funny, some deadly serious; some filled with whimsy, some with horror. Stylistically, some poems relish the challenge of metered rhyme while others delight in the loopy unpredictable music of free verse?

The eldest son of poet Irving Layton, Max has worked as everything from tobacco picker, logger, and apprentice auto mechanic to bank vice president and high school English teacher. He is the author of a novel, a short story collection, four CDs, and two previous books of poems from Guernica: When The Rapture Comes and In The Garden of I Am. He lives in Cheltenham, Ontario.

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A genuine pleasure to read. My first kick came as I realised that every poem takes off from the same line. That's something I've never seen, and it set me thinking of jazz musicians who riff on a familiar tune. It's a muscular conception for a book, sly and satisfying. There's a sturdy intelligence at work here, a stubbornly independent cast of mind determined to test things on its own nerve-ends and come to its own conclusions …

Dennis Lee

One hell of a book!

Leonard Cohen