In poems that are both world-weary yet suffused with a moral force, Adam Getty gives us the perspective of the common man, but gives it in an uncommon voice -- a voice of quiet, contemplative directness tinged with the fierce integrity of one who has lived the experience.

Reconciliation, Adam Getty's first book-length collection of poems, is a work of astounding maturity and depth. In poems of uncompromising honesty and gritty realism, he captures the experiences of hardworking industrial labourers, poor families and the homeless, and grapples not only with the physical toll of such lives but also with the internal conflicts that arise under such demanding conditions. Getty's vision does not end at the realism of the Hot Mill and the slaughterhouse -- there is a visionary quality to these tough, visceral poems that intimates a staunchly held belief in something more than the physical trials one must endure through life. In the tradition of People's Poetry, but with an added mystical dimension impressively realized, Adam Getty renders in poems both stark and vivid the human spirit that rises above, and sometimes falls beneath, the weight of life's circumstances.

Adam Getty was born in Toronto and currently lives in Hamilton, Ontario. He has had his poetry published in journals in both the USA and Canada. His first full length book, Reconciliation, won the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for best first book of poetry and was shortlisted for the 2003 Trillium Award. Repose was cited as one of the "best volumes of verse in 2008" by the Winnipeg Free Press.

Adam Getty's profile page

"Experience Reconciliation to witness how "the light of moon, stars and fire" and the song "of lightning and all things" are reached, even from the belly of the beast, even from the repetitive drudgery of a production line: "I must have done this a thousand times:/ bolting the castings in, supporting them/ with chunks of steel..." Adam Getty's poetry has a skilled distinction, an aristocratic humility that imprints realism, hope and life in every line."
-A.F. Moritz

A.F. Moritz

**OTTAWA XPRESS SUMMER-READING PICK, 2003 "If it's poetry you crave, read this tough wee nugget of a book. Getty writes direct, stripped down, socially relevant poetry. The poems in Reconciliation dwell on the rigours of labour, the anguish of poverty, and the bleakness of 21st-century life, but all done with beautifully apt, colourful language. A hip, intelligent book from a young Canadian poet on the rise - a bold new voice for the masses."
-Matthew Firth, Ottawa Xpress

Ottawa Xpress

"The great themes of Purdy, MacEwen, and Acorn are here in new richness and sophistication. I can taste Getty's blood in every line. These are poems to remind us all of what it is to be alive in this most-human of all worlds."
-Patrick Lane

Patrick Lane

"Reconciliation . . . bespeaks a life lived, as it were, close to the bone. The particular strength of this strong debut is the craft and discipline Getty brings to telling what it means to work when your heart's not in it. This is honest and accomplished writing, dispatches from the dark belly of the beast, poems that sing, as in the marvelous 'Tikkun,' 'of lightnings and all things.'"
-Robert Moore, Winnipeg Free Press

<i>Winnipeg Free Press</i>

"...his verse displays an intense study of poetic form and the history of Western civilization, as well as an acute awareness of his immediate surroundings ... This is poetry that knocks you out like a cudgel, not like a sedative, poetry that should inspire genuine sympathy in any sensitive, intelligent reader and not merely in those already in the know, either industrially or literarily speaking."
-Zach Wells, Maisonneuve Magazine (June 14, 2004)

Maisonneuve

"It's a pleasure to come upon a young poet as accomplished as Adam Getty. Here's a new voice that speaks on new frequencies. Poetry fresh in both thought and temperament, rising from a deep necessity to name the worlds it passes through. There's an unflinching intimacy throughout this book, an inner authority of language and insight, that draws the reader into its reach. Getty is alert to states of being, awake to the everyday realities which carries the depths of penetration only poetry can articulate. A new voice has emerged, visceral, self-disciplined and intelligent. We should listen."
-Don Domanski

Don Domanski

"Adam Getty's debut is a confident, morally forceful lament for those lives and landscapes subsumed by the Moloch of heavy industry. Reconciliation rides on an impressively mature voice, articulating materials, experience and contexts too often trod upon by a well-intentioned but ultimately condescending verse-style that seems to assume workers can't handle any syntax more complex than that found in an elementary-school book. Getty beautifully levels out the blisters, bad pay, slag, smoke and depression . . . The fullness and solidity of these poems is infused with a genuine sorrow - at times a barely contained fury - but the truly affecting result is the vision we get of a young man scouring the industrialized earth for evidence of love, however it is manifest. This is a poet who understands that the facts of his own life are both meaningful and not; that beauty can be laid over the real; and, shockingly, that his own search for a contemporary analog to Christ's demand for mutual responsibility should not be hidden or muted."
-Ken Babstock, Globe and Mail

Globe and Mail

"The industrial design of Adam Getty's collection is telling. He has no qualms about recounting the obliteration of men in factories, laying down the roadmap for "the city that grew /around a prison," tossing off phrases like 'C'mon you fuckers /we're better than you, bring it on,' getting underneath the knifework required for a slaughterhouse grunt, or forcing poetry from line work in Srebrenica. 'Imagine this was all, every day/ for forty years: grey walls,/ grey floors, racks of shoes rattle/ and drone rattle and drone.'"
-Emily Schultz, Broken Pencil

Broken Pencil

"In Adam Getty there is to be found a rare combination of seriousness of intent and adequacy of means and intelligence. ... given the rhythmic authority and thoughtful engagement of his best work, it seems clear to me that Adam Getty is one of a very small handful of emerging Canadian poets who deserve serious attention."
-Zach Wells, Maisonneuve Magazine (September 20, 2004)

Maisonneuve

"Reconciliation demonstrates that the People's Poetry tradition, despite such serious blood loss, lives on... Demonstrates a solid apprehension of the lyric form, each piece developing a distinct idea and carried by a pleasing cadence... Getty's verse is never stilted or forced, and his lines are broken with confidence."
-Susan Briscoe, Books in Canada

Books in Canada

"In this impressive debut volume, Hamilton poet Adam Getty writes of the working-class struggle of the inhabitants of that industrial city-the stuggle for survival and for respect... He sets out to revive not the rhyme schemes and stanzaic forms of English traditions, but its high seriousness, its striving toward beauty."
-Colin Morton, ARC

ARC