Description
Breathtaking new poetry by the author of The Cottage Builder’s Letter
In this brilliantly evoked new gathering of poems, George Murray creates a strange and menacing world, pulsating with sensory intensity. These poems don’t just inquire, they demand answers, and go seeking them through the realms of the past, the present, and the future. Here are stories and images that challenge, threaten, and fascinate by their dreamlike clarity, flickering through kaleidoscopic changes and throwing off resonant statements like sparks. “On either side of awe,” as Murray puts it in these innovative new poems, “stand horror and reverence.” Events and figures emerge swiftly out of one another in a landscape partly a futuristic or ancient wasteland, partly the generous earth we know. The collection as a whole forms a saga, moving from contemporary damage toward the possibilities – disaster? recovery? – that always exist “in the few moments we have under the sky.”
About the author
George Murray's three previous books of poetry include The Hunter (McClelland & Stewart, 2003) and The Cottage Builder's Letter (M&S, 2001). His poems, fiction and criticism have appeared in many publications in Canada, the US, the UK, Australia and Europe. Murray won the 2003 New York Festivals Radio and Television Gold Medal for Best Writing for his broadcast poem "Anniversary: A Personal Inventory" and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is the editor and publisher of the popular literary website Bookninja.com and a contributing editor for several literary magazines, including Canadian Notes and Queries and The Drunken Boat. He lives in St. John's, Newfoundland.
Excerpt: The Hunter (by (author) George Murray)
WOLF
The architect of the cottage on the hill
never took into account
its foundations. Having been paid
for a hasty erection, he forgot what damage
the ages might do
to a dwelling built in a passion for ease.
It’s not the noise of the city that distracts,
it’s the narrative.
It’s the urge to pluck order, a through-line,
purpose, from the seeming chaos. It’s the need
to make sense from nonsense
that occupies waking moments and coaxes
inactivity from accomplishment.
O for a pair of red eyes
in the woods. What should we fear
in an age that has killed emergency,
when stakes of destruction
have been jacked so high no one
can match the ante? The kindness
in the eyes of the dog
is not the opposite of the malice
dripping from the wolf’s maw. For now
we must share these shadows
with the dark, for it does not have its own.
For now we must go where they
do not want us.
For now we must explore.
Editorial Reviews
“There is a beauty within the poetic language.…This beauty is what makes The Hunter a compelling read. At this watershed moment in history, we are all looking for the beauty that lies somewhere beneath the ugliness of history and the ominous tone of prophecy.”
–Quill & Quire
“He has the poet’s instinct, the knack for turning a good phrase and the verbal grit and suppleness to keep the reader engaged. . . . An important talent.”
–National Post
