Publisher Description

It's a matter of knowing winter. Snowbird travels south, seeks warmth, and begins waiting. 'The Snowbird Poems', is a brilliant flight of departure. Beached where he watches a drowning horizon, teased by romance, Snowbird lets his responses become a message in a bottle to the lost and for the found. Appearing at first wearing bifocals and drinking from a fake coconut, Snowbird goes on to retrieve the footprint of story from the ocean of memory.

Back Cover

[Front cover flap] There is a time in life to sign off on cold winters. It's a matter of knowing when. Snowbird travels south seeking warmth and stakes out his spot on the beach. Accompanied by the mysterious and perceptive Henrietta, he reads variously, suntans frequently and begins searching. But is he stranded or has he come to the rescue? What would you do when beached on a drowning horizon? Look for a footprint in the sand. Look for a message in a bottle. Try to remember why you need to be rescued. Try to remember if you escaped. A teasing romance, a fragmented fiction, the attraction of an orange tree-this is a collection written to the lost and for the found. Written with deceptive playfulness, The Snowbird Poems is a poignant journey by one of Canada's leading writers. The bottle was a faded green, half-buried in the sand, corked tight. The message was not hand-written or hand-printed; it had been composed on a computer, printed out, and was perfectly clear to the eye. What disturbed me was the hand-written signature. The signature was mine. - from "meanwhile" [Back cover flap] "I say to myself, is it fair for a rival poet to get better and better? But of course Kroetsch is no rival.. He is comic, congenial and surprising. Like most of Kroetsch's long poems, this one is a glimpsed novel, and you know how much fun it is falling into one of those." -George Bowering As an extensively published novelist, poet, critic and scholar, Robert Kroetsch is one of Canada's most accomplished authors. Born in Heisler, Alberta, he earned his PhD at the University of Iowa. In 1969 his third novel, The Studhorse Man, won the Governor General's Award for Fiction. His most recent collection of poetry, The Hornbooks of Rita K (The University of Alberta Press), was short-listed for the Governor General's Award for Poetry in 2001. Robert Kroetsch lives in Winnipeg. Cover image: (details) The University of Alberta Press A volume in CURRENTS, a Canadian literature series Book design by Alan Brownoff Printed in Canada $24.95 in Canada [Back cover] Never mind the water, just keep an eye on the sky for falling objects. And I'm not talking meteors here. You could get hit on the head by a large rubber ball. What I mean is, the beach is crowded. So you're alone, so what? Like the lady said, tough luck. So you got old. Don't tell me you fell for the one about (forgive the contradiction) eternal youth. And yet, hey, I really feel pretty good. I mean, put on your bifocals. Look at those bikinis. And pass me my drink, would you? No, not the water, the one in the fake coconut. This is living. And wait a minute. Are you Friday, or am I? -from "beached 3"

Author Biography

One of Canada's most accomplished authors, Robert Kroetsch was born in Heisler, Alberta. In 1969 he won the Governor General's Award for Fiction. Kroetsch's enormous contribution to Canadian literature spans fiction, non-fiction, poetry and scholarship, and he is recognised internationally for both his writing and his teaching. A Distinguished Alumnus of the University of Alberta, his most recent award is the Manitoba Arts Council Arts Award of Distinction. Robert Kroetsch lives in Winnipeg.

Review

"...the series succeeds in conveying the mixed blessing of an urban tropical vacation, [in a]-not-quite-serious tone... Snowbird speaks with a poet's romanticism... Poems from This Part of the Country mark Kroetsch as part of that school of prairie writers who gift us with their mindfulness of place." -- Sonnet L'Abbe, The Globe & Mail, 20 November 2004. "The lovely thing about Kroetsch's 'lifetime achievement' is that it's nowhere near finished. His masterful new book of poetry, The Snowbird Poems, his 13th, resonates within and extends his earlier writing...There are new timbres in the wry, sad voice we have encountered elsewhere in Kroetsch's poetry, as well as mingling layers of mythic allusion." -- Chris Wiebe, VUE Weekly, Dec 16-22. "The Snowbird Poems is an impressive anthology of the poetry of Canadian literary icon Robert Kroetsch." Midwest Book Review, Reviewer's Bookwatch, June 2005 "These are dangling conversations, hints, and mere footprints in the sand of an endless shoreline. This is, in some sense, a collection of allusions." Anne Burke, Prairie Journal Trust, July 14, 2005 "A glance through The Snowbird Poems...shows that Kroetsch is still in fine form when it comes to the long poem: the 107-page book is essentially four individual poems broken (and melded) into their components, iterative and process-oriented, and lays strong claim to continuing his earlier work." Matthew Holmes, Arc (Canada's National Poetry Magazine), Summer 2005

Long Description

It's a matter of knowing winter. Snowbird travels south, seeks warmth, and begins waiting. Robert Kroetsch's new collection, The Snowbird Poems, is a brilliant flight of departure. Beached where he watches a drowning horizon, teased by romance, Snowbird lets his responses become a message in a bottle to the lost and for the found. Appearing at first wearing bifocals and drinking from a fake coconut, Snowbird goes on to retrieve the footprint of story from the ocean of memory.

Review Quote

The Snowbird Poems is an impressive anthology of the poetry of Canadian literary icon Robert Kroetsch.

Details