Robinson's Crossing
- Publisher
- Brick Books
- Initial publish date
- Jul 2004
- Category
- Canadian
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781926829128
- Publish Date
- Sep 2004
- List Price
- $11.99
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781894078375
- Publish Date
- Jul 2004
- List Price
- $16.00
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Description
The poems in this book arise from Robinson's Crossing - the place where the railway ends and European settlers arriving in northern Alberta had to cross the Pembina River and advance by wagon or on foot. How have we crossed into this country, with what violence and what blind love? Robinson's Crossing enacts the pause at the frontier, where we reflect on the realities of colonial experience, but also on the nature of living here- on historical dwelling itself. In long meditative narratives and shorter probing lyrics, Jan Zwicky shows us-as she has in her celebrated Lyric Philosophy and the Governor General's award-winning Songs for Relinquishing the Earth - how music means and meaning is musical.
My great-
grandmother slept
in a boxcar on the night
before she made the crossing. The steel
ended in Sangudo then, there was
no trestle on the Pembina, no siding
on the other side. They crossed
by ferry, and went on by cart through bush,
the same eight miles. Another
family legend has it that she stood there
in the open doorway of the shack
and said, "You told me, Ernest,
it had windows and a floor." - from "Robinson's Crossing"
About the author
Jan Zwicky is an accomplished poet, philosopher and musician whose intense and vivid lyricism imbues her poetry with music and passion. Born in Calgary, Alberta, Zwicky studied at the University of Calgary and the University of Toronto before undertaking an academic career teaching philosophy at a number of North American institutions. She is also a professional musician, with an active interest in baroque performance technique. Zwicky is a prolific essayist, as well as the author of a dozen books. Her works have won her the Governor General's Award (Songs For Relinquishing the Earth, 1998) and the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize (Robinson's Crossing, 2004) as well as many other accolades and shortlist nominations. Zwicky lives on Quadra Island, British Columbia.
Other titles by
Once upon a Time in the West
Essays on the Politics of Thought and Imagination
Sixty-Seven Ontological Studies
49 Poems and 18 Photographs
The Collected Poetry of Carol Shields
The Experience of Meaning
Learning to Die
Wisdom in the Age of Climate Crisis
The Long Walk
Wittgenstein Elegies
Brick Books Classics 6
Alkibiades' Love
Essays in Philosophy
Chamber Music
The Poetry of Jan Zwicky
