|
|
|
|
 |
Fielder's Choice
Elise Partridge
The Globe & Mail--August 23, 2003
Ken Babstock
Partridge is a technical wizard for whom thinking and feeling are not separate activities. She is a hawk-like observer of the particular, and every poem is built on solid footing, the poured concrete of the deeply considered, many times ascending to pitch-perfect verse.
[These poems] should place Partridge among the best of the newer Canadian poets using form. She simply soars when combining rhyme and a varied line-length...This is a poetry of precision, where the chrysalis of the factual morphs into metaphor.
National Post - April 26, 2003
Robyn Sarah
A fully formed voice speaks in these poems that invite us to share their closely observed particulars—a hospitable voice, full of intelligence, good humour, candour, engagement. Elise Partridge is a mature poet who waited until she had a book's worth of poems before publishing a book of poems: how rare, how respectful of the reader--and of the poems! For in her book, each poem commands attention, makes a space around itself, establishes a relationship with us.Fielder's Choice is an exemplary book, and a debut to celebrate.
Reviews Index
More reviews of this title...
|
 |
Merrybegot
Mary Dalton
Books in Canada--Summer 2003
Shane Neilson
Folksy, feisty, and possessing a rough irreverence, the poetry in Merrybegot is grounded in both the speech rhythms and landscape of Dalton's Atlantic home. The writing often hits that ground running, so to speak, with the quick pace of Newfoundland vernacular...So pitch-perfect is her technique, one suspects that Dalton has surreptitiously transcribed actual clothesline conversations.
The use of colloquial speech in North American verse hasn't been innovative since William Carlos Williams and Robert Frost, but Dalton's contribution revivifies this tradition with the galloping dialect of common Newfoundlanders. And there's plenty of life in this poetry...a real celebration of language and of the lives that utter it.
The Northeast Avalon Times--February 2003
Robin McGrath
I have no doubt that this collection will finally garner Dalton the national recognition she deserves. [Merrybegot] will be a significant turning point in Newfoundland's cultural development.
Reviews Index
More reviews of this title...
|
|
Doug: The Doug Harvey Story
William Brown
McGill News - Spring 2003
William Brown's enjoyable and well-researched new book, Doug: The Doug Harvey Story, offers readers an engaging and often poignant look at one of the NHL's most colourful characters, a player whose remarkable skills helped fuel a Montreal Canadiens team that most hockey experts regard as the best squad ever assembled.
Sports Illustrated - February 10, 2003
Stu Hackel
Brown concludes in this sympathetic, well-researched book that Harvey was largely free from bitterness, having lived the way he dominated hockey--at the pace he chose.
The Globe & Mail - January 2003
Books
Before Bobby Orr, Doug Harvey was hockey's greatest defenceman; seven times Norris trophy winner as best defenceman, ten times an all-star. But Harvey was also demon-haunted. As a player he was a feisty critic of a corrupt hockey establishment. Later he fought manic depression and alcoholism and was more or less a vagrant. Sportswriter William Brown tells his remarkable sad story.
Reviews Index
More reviews of this title...
|
 |
Helix: New and Selected Poems
John Steffler
The Globe & Mail--August 23, 2003
Ken Babstock
John Steffler is one of our finest lyric poets in mid-career. His lines are wind-whipped ribbons of ebullience, stanzas throughout Helix: New and Selected Poems glow with a love of the-world-out-there, and this warm, celebratory torque is hard won, as opposed to a sentimental applauding.
Reviews Index
More reviews of this title...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
