Quill and Quire

Poetry

The Wireless Room

By Shane Rhodes

It’s clear from reading Tim Bowling’s third collection, The Thin Smoke of the Heart, that he is a poet of rare talent. His wording is musical. His rhythms are subtle but unfaltering. He turns a ... Read More »

February 23, 2004 | Filed under: Poetry

The Border Surrounds Us

By Karen Connelly

In The Border Surrounds Us, her fourth book of poetry, Karen Connelly has found a subject that coheres perfectly with the thrust of her poetic imagination. Her new work testifies more clearly than ever to ... Read More »

February 23, 2004 | Filed under: Poetry

His Life: A Poem

By George Bowering

On the surface it seems so simple: His Life, the new book by two-time Governor General’s Award-winner George Bowering, is a poetic memoir, a book-length poem drawn from over 30 years of journal entries. Almost ... Read More »

February 23, 2004 | Filed under: Poetry

Animal Life in Bucharest

By John Degen

John Degen meanders through the streets of Bucharest to produce a book of tight images in his first collection of poetry, Animal Life in Bucharest. Degen, a playwright, theatre critic, and freelance arts journalist, creates ... Read More »

February 23, 2004 | Filed under: Poetry

Burn

By Paul Vermeersch

Toronto poet Paul Vermeersch is a raconteur, a guy who writes poems about childhood terrors and screw-ups in love, about girls with metal in their tongues and boys with shotguns in their mouths. A guy ... Read More »

February 23, 2004 | Filed under: Poetry

★ Handwriting

By Michael Ondaatje

You are 20, a male tree-planter working the cleaving mountains west of Spatsizi in northern B.C. Mid-summer blackflies. You ache for the brown and blonding women on the crew: the ankle bracelets below calf muscles, ... Read More »

February 20, 2004 | Filed under: Poetry