Full Description
This volume features thirty-five of Don McKay's best poems, which are selected with a contextualizing introduction by Méira Cook that probes wilderness and representation in McKay, and the canny, quirky, thoughtful, and sometimes comic self-consciousness the poems adumbrate. Included is McKay's afterword written especially for this volume in which McKay reflects on his own writing process - its relationship to the earth and to metamorphosis.
Don McKay has published eight books of poetry. He won the Governor General's Award in 1991 (for Night Field) and in 2000 (for Another Gravity), a National Magazine Award (1991), and the Canadian Authors Association Award for Poetry in 1984 (for Birding, Or Desire). Don McKay was shortlisted for the 2005 Griffin Poetry Prize for Camber and was the Canadian winner of the 2007 Griffin Poetry Prize for Strike/Slip. Born in Owen Sound, Ontario, McKay has been active as an editor, creative writing teacher, and university instructor, as well as a poet. He has taught at the University of Western Ontario, the University of New Brunswick, The Banff Centre, The Sage Hill Writing Experience, and the BC Festival of the Arts. He has served as editor and publisher of Brick Books since 1975 and from 1991 to 1996 as editor of The Fiddlehead. He resides in British Columbia.
Contents
Field Marks: The Poetry of Don McKay selected with an introduction by Méira Cook
Foreword
Neil Besner
Biographical Note
Introduction: Song for the Song of the Dogged Birdwatcher
Méira Cook
Down River, Into the Camp
At the Long Sault Parkway
The Great Blue Heron
The Eye Meets Tom Thomson's ""A Rapid""
The Trout
August
Lependu nearly materialized by his blackbirds
Field Marks:
Leaving
The Boy's Own Guide to Dream Birds
I Scream You Scream
Adagio for a Fallen Sparrow
Field Marks (2):
Identification
VIA, Eastbound
Buckling
Some Functions of a Leaf
How to Imagine an Albatross
from Black Spruce
Another Theory of Dusk
Meditation on a Geode
Choosing the Bow
Meditation on Shovels
Poplar
Early Instruments
Twinflower
Alibi
Materiel:
(i) The Man from Nod
(ii) Fates Worse Than Death
Setting the Table
(i) Knife
(ii) Fork
(iii) Spoon
Sometimes a Voice (1)
Load
Luna Moth Meditation
Hush Factor
Sometimes a Voice (2)
Astonished
Afterword: The Shell of the Tortoise
Don McKay
Acknowledgements
