Watching a Man Break a Dog’s Back
Poems for a Dark Time
- Publisher
- Harbour Publishing Co. Ltd.
- Initial publish date
- Mar 2020
- Category
- Canadian, Death, General
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781550179125
- Publish Date
- Mar 2020
- List Price
- $18.95
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Description
Watching a Man Break a Dog’s Back explores the question of how to live in a natural landscape that offers beauty while being consumed by industry, and in an economy that offers material benefits while denying dignity, meaning and a voice to many in order to satisfy the outsized appetites of the few.
A cri de coeur from a poet who has long celebrated the voices of working people, the collection also grapples with why “anyone, in this era so profoundly lacking in grace, might want to make poems—or any kind of art.” But the keen sense of justice that drives the collection is tempered by the poet’s reluctance to take himself too seriously: “Centuries without the benefit / of my presence / have to be made up for / by my words.”
The poet brings the perspective of age to our current troubled existence, with the reminder that as a society and as individuals we’ve faced perilous times before, and that our shared mortality links us more than circumstances and politics divide us.
About the author
Awards
- Winner, Western Canada Jewish Book Awards (published poetry in English)
Editorial Reviews
“While Watching a Man Break a Dog’s Back is rooted in lineages of both work literature and nature writing, it is also an unflinching snapshot of our own times: their divisive politics, their accelerating corporate and industrial violence against poor and marginalized peoples, and against the biosphere. Here are angry rants, wistful meditations, and difficult questions. ‘Amid so many words,’ Wayman asks, ‘where in a spectrum of needs, desires, hopes do we locate the authentically human?’”
Melanie Dennis Unrau and Kelly Shepherd, <i>Canadian Literature</i>
“Watching a Man Break a Dog’s Back is what poetry should be in a tumultuous era; something readers of any educational background can easily understand and relate to immediately, while still leaving plenty of room for nuance.”
Art Joyce, <i>The Valley Voice</i>
“Wayman is still at work creating poems that are as astringent and individual as human pain, and as universal as our highest hopes for a beloved community. Readers will be grateful for this record of his latest labours.”
Tom Sandborn, <i>The Vancouver Sun</i>
Other titles by
Out of the Ordinary
New Poems
The Road to Appledore
Or How I Went Back to the Land Without Ever Having Lived There in the First Place
How Can You Live Here?
If You're Not Free at Work, Where Are You Free
Literature and Social Change
Helpless Angels
a book of music
The Shadows We Mistake for Love
Stories
The Order in Which We Do Things
The Poetry of Tom Wayman