Here is crystallized experience and formal inventiveness from a poet whose work embodies maturity and vitality. He approaches his subject matter from diverse vantage points, employing a variety of lenses to encompass broad vistas, from the Canadian West to travels abroad to the world of work. Though largely autobiographical, there are frequent departures from the first person. Roughly chronological in the order of its sections, Panoptic offers thoughtful accounts of the poet's early life, and with humour, wit and searching insight goes on to delve into relationships, explore identity and confront mortality.

Tom Gannon Hamilton has had poems published in Blue Buffalo, Blood & Aphorisms, OiSE Transforms, Hart House, Whetstone and Dalhousie Review. He was awarded First Prize in the 2018 Big Pond Rumours Chapbook competition for a suite of poems entitled "El Marillo," which chronicles the poet's experiences in war-torn El Salvador. After serving as an aid worker in El Salvador Tom was welcomed into the Salvadoran arts cooperative Tizon and Nicaragua's Instituto de Cultura. His B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. all focused on poetry. He is founder, curator and host of the Urban Folk Art Salon in partnership with Toronto Public Library. A career musician since age 14, Tom makes his living performing and producing records in the Toronto area.

Thomas Hamilton's profile page