Mountain Tea: & Other Poems

Nominated for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry in 1984 and out of print for almost twenty years, this is a new revised edition of Peter van Toorn’s exhilarating, landmark collection of poems. The introduction to the new edition by poet David Solway, describes Mountain Tea‘s unique place in Canada’s literary history. The original McClelland and Stewart edition described Mountain Tea, as a “book of cosmopolitan delights … a kaleidoscope of voices, from jazzy riffs to highly formal poetry … a collection enriched by its free-ranging translations.”

Reviews

“A wildly inventive tour de force.” –Toronto Star

“The more I look at this collection, the more I’m convinced that it’s indispensable… This is honestly not the kind of book you forgive yourself for missing… Please buy it.” –Bookninja.com

“An original genius. Van Toorn’s poetry is as rooted in various ancient traditions of verse as it is in jazz rhythms and the vernacular of the Canadian present. He is equally masterful in free verse as he is within the confines of the sonnet. Poetry like this explodes the false dichotomies of postmodern and classical, formalist and avant-garde, traditional and experimental. … Van Toorn’s poetic resources seem almost limitless.” –Books in Canada