4 A.M. BOOKS

#27 Grunt of the Minotaur by Robin Richardson

2011-10-15T13:35:00.000-07:00

Fall 2011

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Toronto’s Robin Richardson is a poet and illustrator who is pursuing an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. Her work has appeared in many Canadian and American journals including CV2, Dandelion, The Berkeley Poetry Review and The Westchester Review.

Praise for Grunt of the Minotaur:

“Robin Richardson’s intense, quietly unsettling fables of the everyday are pitched in a jagged language uncannily tuned to the never-quite-sweet music of human history. These fresh, fire-bright poems are barbed blooms petaled with wise cautions and unexpected joy.”
—Kevin Connolly, author of Drift and Revolver

“A canvas explains nothing, only folds and musters light,” reflects Robin Richardson, poet of rare sharpness, for whom every page is a canvas rich in mystery. Flaunting a painterly attention to the seductive textures of menace—“pike smiling from a skillet,” “an arm offered up in buttermilk,” “crystal cups now dust which cuts the palms”—here are portraits, still lifes, fables and allegorical tableaux that enrapture the ear with the textures of language itself. Taxidermy, trussed birds, daguerrotypes, a crow-foot tub. This book makes ecstasy of ekphrasis, “each separate occasion rising for distinction in the lamp.”
—Suzanne Buffam, author of Past Imperfect and The Irrationalist

"The speakers in Grunt of the Minotaur are concerned with classification and cures. Instructions for “paying visits of condolence” include the wonderfully bodily “coo, pretend to give / a kiss when sniffing the seasoned marrow.” Richardson writes for the ear, eye and mouth—you’ll want to read these lush poems out loud."
—Matthea Harvey, author of Sad Little Breathing Machine and Modern Life

#26 Love Figures by Sam Cheuk

2011-10-15T13:32:00.000-07:00

Spring 2011

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In his debut poetry collection, Sam Cheuk attempts to invent a new way of truth-telling.

"Sam Cheuk's first collection, Love Figures, reveals the poet as a kind of detective in inner sanctum. Cheuk's wit shows in the movement of each trope and through moments of adroitness where both pain and joy meet in the same line. Get ready for Love Figures, as the poet aims continuously and hits the mark slantwise."

#25 Dance, Monster! Fifty Selected Poems by Stan Rogal

2011-10-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

Spring 2011

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Drawing from a variety of sources including folksong, philosophy, linguistics, chaos theory, theatre and sexuality, Stan Rogal's poetry is a rollicking and adroit expression of the world in flux.

This selection gathers together fifty of Rogal's best poems from the last thirty years; it is sure to delight long-time fans and new readers alike.

Praise for Stan Rogal

"It is as though Rogal had snuck up on a whole regiment of stock cultural myths and assumptions, armed only with a folksong, imaginative muscle, abundant mother wit and a wicked talent for subversive wordplay: it's the surprise that enlivens; the trickster's art."
— Don McKay

"If there ever was a poet to articulate our collective death wish, Rogal is it."
— Books In Canada

#24 Winterkill by Catherine Graham

2011-10-15T13:27:00.000-07:00

Fall 2010

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Catherine Graham's new collection Winterkill completes the trilogy that includes her critically acclaimed previous books Pupa (2003) and The Red Element (2008).

#23 Tiny, Frantic, Stronger by Jeff Latosik

2011-10-15T13:24:00.000-07:00

Spring 2010

-WINNER OF THE 2010 TRILLIUM BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY

-FINALIST FOR THE 2011 GERALD LAMPERT MEMORIAL AWARD

-WINNER OF THE 2007 P. K. PAGE FOUNDERS' AWARD

"In Tiny, Frantic, Stronger (whose title is derived from one of the poet’s ‘insect elegies’), a slap shot leaves a “purple mouth” on a shin, days “lean against the crowd fence of other days,” a subway train is “a long, moody thing inside that grows like a vine,” and tomorrows come “dressed in newspaper, balancing a phone book.

"In this clever, heartbreaking first collection, no subject is so small it can’t hint at the ineffable, or so large it isn’t fraught with the everyday struggle of being alive. Equal parts architect, clown, mesmer, and armchair psychologist, Jeff Latosik is the very best kind of poet: an original."

— Kevin Connolly, author of Drift and Revolver

#22 Why Are You So Long And Sweet?: Collected Long Poems by David W. McFadden

2011-10-15T13:14:00.000-07:00

Spring 2010

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A companion volume to Why Are You So Sad? — David W. McFadden's book of selected poems shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize — this book finally brings together, in one place, all of McFadden's masterful long poems, once again selected and edited by Stuart Ross.

#21 Wanton by Angela Hibbs

2011-10-15T13:10:00.000-07:00

Fall 2009

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In the first section of Angela Hibbs's second collection, short lyrical poems blur the lines between personal, geographical, and artistic spaces, demonstrating how we blend the intimate details of our lives with the culture we consume — be it modern literature, primetime television, or contemporary art. Here, liminal spaces are not denounced as confusing gray areas, but celebrated as welcome places of pause, ripe with opportunity for fertile mutation.

The second section of the book, a long poem sequence set in the imaginary town of Wanton, is concerned with familial legitimacy from the point of view of adopted children put to work to earn their keep. Absentee fathers and overly-present benefactors haunt the long narrative poem, and the result is something like the bastard child of Harold Gray's Little Orphan Annie and Harmony Korine's Gummo. At once sweetly comic and brutally grim, it always manages to assert its oddball characters and misfit emotions with vulnerability and verve.

#20 Naming the Mannequins by Nic Labriola

2011-10-15T13:08:00.000-07:00

Spring 2009

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Naming the Mannequins is an ecstatic journey through the seamy underbelly of a fading, unnamed town populated with seemingly hollow, anonymous souls. Taking place over the span of one night, this series of linked poems gives us glimpses into the lives of unlikely urban saints on their individual quests for personal humanity and spiritual redemption.

#19 Porcupine Archery by Bill Howell

2011-10-15T13:03:00.000-07:00

Spring 2009

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One of the original 'Storm Warning' poets, Bill Howell is now at the height of an award-winning literary career spanning four decades.

#18 Into the Drowned World by Ryan Kamstra

2011-10-15T13:00:00.000-07:00

Fall 2008

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Into the Drowned World is a visionary work of pop-culture apocrypha, recited by a nodding, benumbed narrator who is perpetually reliving the day before the turn of the millennium. At its heart is Kamstra's breathless, ecstatic response to Madonna's infamous Drowned World Tour of 2001, which forms both a lyrical and lexical shorthand for our stunted relations, abandoned tenets, and an almost forgotten civil society.

#17 The Red Element by Catherine Graham

2011-10-15T12:56:00.000-07:00

Spring 2008

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"In her stunning new volume of poems, The Red Element, Catherine Graham distills the whirling ambiguities of memories into gorgeous, mysterious single images, making the short poem triumph again on the Canadian literary landscape. With the dense, new energy of The Red Element, where all the poems form a bravura lyrical sequence, Graham proves herself as one of Canada's premier younger poets."

#16 The Debaucher by Jason Camlot

2011-10-15T12:53:00.000-07:00

Spring 2008

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The Debaucher, Jason Camlot's third collection of poetry, walks an oscillating lyrical tightrope between realms of cosmopolitan sophistication and ribald hilarity.

#15 Shell by Olive Senior

2011-10-15T12:47:00.000-07:00

Fall 2007

FINALIST FOR THE 2008 PAT LOWTHER AWARD

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In Shell, Olive Senior continues her ongoing investigation of the natural world, the nature of poetry and the power of her Caribbean heritage. She is our guide through realms of miniature elegance, those of shells in their abundant manifestations.

#14 Why Are You So Sad?: Selected Poems by David W. McFadden

2011-10-15T12:43:00.000-07:00

Spring 2007

FINALIST FOR THE 2008 GRIFFIN POETRY PRIZE

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His life in Canadian poetry has spanned five decades, and David W. McFadden is still going strong.

#13 A Newer Wilderness Roseanne Carrara

2011-10-15T12:38:00.000-07:00

Spring 2007

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In Roseanne Carrara's A Newer Wilderness, the world's rich and compelling past buckles and swells beneath our feet, and its abiding influence rises like geothermal steam into the present.

#12 Every Inadequate Name by Nick Thran

2011-10-15T12:33:00.000-07:00

Fall 2006

FINALIST FOR THE 2007 GERALD LAMPERT MEMORIAL AWARD

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In this, his highly anticipated debut collection of poems, Nick Thran fuses a whimsical pop sensibility with an urgent poetic gravitas that refuses to sell the human heart short. The resultant poems are emblematic of the clash between our private enthusiasms and the cool diffidence of the world around us.

#11 Creamsicle Stick Shivs by John Stiles

2011-10-15T12:30:00.000-07:00

Spring 2006

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John Stiles' first collection of poetry, Scouts Are Cancelled, explored the dialect and the dilemmas of down-home life in Nova Scotia's rural Annapolis Valley.

In his second collection, the poet expands his horizons. Chronicling his movements from Canada's east coast to Toronto's self-obsessed urban core, following his heart around the world to find love and employment in England, these poems resonate with profound ideas and offbeat observations on people and place, on the variables that combine to create a person's identity, and what it means to leave, to seek, and to desire a home.

Alive with Stiles' distinct linguistic charms and poetic good nature, Creamsicle Stick Shivs is a book of subtle inventiveness and undeniable roguish delight.

#10 Man & Beast by Eric Cole

2011-10-15T12:24:00.000-07:00

Fall 2005

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For Irish-born poet and zookeeper Eric Cole, the fourteen lines and rhythmic patterns of the sonnet echo the very building blocks of life. Within the basic structure of simple genetic material lies the limitless potential for the existence of all living things, be they man or beast. So, too, within the simple structure of the sonnet, there is a similar universe of untold possibilities.

Now, in these robust and stylish poems, the mysteries of the animal kingdom are explored with genuine scientific curiosity and rendered with tenderness, stimulating language and unmistakable Irish wit. From the reviled Portuguese man o' war to the glorious hyacinth macaw, from the elusive snow leopard to the bizarre pangolin and even to the human animal itself, Cole demonstrates how life exists in inexplicable but nonetheless indispensable variety. This collection serves to remind us what we stand to lose if we fail to appreciate the small states of grace that befall us in the disappearing natural wonders of our world.

#9 Gardening in the Tropics by Olive Senior

2011-10-15T12:20:00.000-07:00

Fall 2005

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The contemprary classic back in print!

Gardening in the Tropics contains a rich Caribbean world in poems offered to readers everywhere. Olive Senior's rich vein of humour can turn wry and then sharp in satire of colour-consciousness, class-consciousness and racism. But her predominant tone is the verbal equivalent of a pair of wide-open arms.

#8 Over the Roofs of the World by Olive Senior

2011-10-15T12:16:00.000-07:00

Spring 2005:

FINALIST FOR THE 2005 GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD

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Using nature as both model and metaphor, Toronto resident Olive Senior delves into birds, flying, and Caribbean life in her third book of poems. Following her much-loved collections, Gardening in the Tropics and Talking of Trees, this long-awaited book of poems is sure to delight readers around the world.

#7 Unsettled by Zachariah Wells

2011-10-15T12:13:00.000-07:00

Fall 2004

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Not since Al Purdy's North of Summer has a Canadian poet written so compellingly about life in the frozen arctic. The poems in Zachariah Wells' debut collection range through territories as vast as the north itself, from explorations of ancient myths to modern tales of courage and survival, from lyrical meditations on nature to searing poems about the daily grind of manual labour. This book reminds us why our nation's consciousness is pervaded by the idea of North: why we fear it and why we inhabit it, how it can be explored and colonized but never conquered, never truly settled.

#6 Parts Unknown by Michael Holmes

2011-10-15T12:10:00.000-07:00

Spring 2004

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Once again proving that no subject matter is beyond his poetic grasp, Michael Holmes now takes on the carnivalesque world of professional wrestling. With humour and bone-cracking language, Parts Unknown bridges the artificial trenches that established cultural endeavours have dug between themselves and their "lowbrow" athletic neighbours. These high-flying poems strut to their own music and enter the literary ring ready to rumble.

#5 Pupa by Catherine Graham

2011-10-15T12:08:00.000-07:00

Fall 2003

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Losing one's parents is a growth experience many people can relate to. Catherine Graham's collection of poems, Pupa — fittingly named after the chrysalis stage of an insect — intimately explores this loss, employing metaphor and rhythm evocatively. Like all memorable poets, Graham imbues daily events with transcendent relevance.

#4 OUTSIDE MAGIC by Noah Leznoff

2011-10-15T12:04:00.000-07:00

Spring 2003

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In 1997, poet Noah Leznoff delighted readers with his critically acclaimed debut collection Why We Go to Zoos. Six years later, one of the most enjoyable voices in Canadian poetry to have emerged in the 1990s returns with a riveting new collection, and he's speaking loud and clear.

In Outside Magic, the poet answers difficult questions about love and politics, about our public selves and domestic spaces, questions for which the answers have long been taken for granted — and the answers are not always what we expect.

Alive with a multiplicity of voices and wrought with remarkable technical versatility, these poems take us outside our convenient assumptions and transcendental connections; outside the illusions of certainty, the sleight of hand of our social vocabulary and the mysteries of our civil existence — in short, these poems take us outside magic.

#3 Scouts Are Cancelled by John Stiles

2011-10-15T11:58:00.000-07:00

Fall 2002

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Scouts Are Cancelled is a richly humorous book of poetry that examines what happens when a small Nova Scotian farm community is corrupted by a greedy developer trying to sell off farmland to build a subdivision.

Stiles vividly brings to life the dialect and characters of the Valley as no writer has yet managed to do. Working with ease in the vernacular of the regional writer, Stiles manages in these Annapolis Valley poems to speak for all of us.

Like all exceptional writers using a regional idiom, Stiles' episodes in the life of a small town reverberate with universal themes. The loss of innocence, the comic retaliation against this loss, the outrage, fear and subsequent relief of the town's citizens when good triumphs over evil, all are expressed through the various characters in the rural community. This worthy chorus is represented chiefly by two of the town's teenage citizens: the intensely likeable Selby Wallis and his best friend, Lio Simpson, stepson of the greedy developer.

#2 Late Capitalist Sublime by Ryan Kamstra

2011-10-15T11:49:00.000-07:00

Spring 2002

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lATE cAPITALIST sUBLIME marks the début of Ryan Kamstra, heir apparent to the dissenting tradition in Canadian poetry. Thematically echoing overtly political poets such as Milton Acorn, F.R. Scott and Dorothy Livesay, Kamstra's streetwise poetry bears witness to a superficial world, which is relieved only by the occasional glimmer of a resilient human spirit.

From the austere archipelagos of glass and steel in our cities' downtown cores — those places where wealth is made, hoarded and lost — to our most private and soiled environments, Kamstra's poetry stakes out, and often raids, both the places we feel most comfortable and the places we fear to tread. He boldly spies on both the powerbrokers and the powerless in order to report back to us on what remains of our humanity in this time of late capitalism.

#1 Early Poems by A. F. Moritz

2011-10-15T11:45:00.000-07:00

Spring 2002

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A. F. Moritz is the author of thirteen books of poetry, numerous chapbooks and limited edition volumes. He has received major honours including the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Award in Literature of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. His book Rest on the Flight into Egypt was nominated for the 2000 Governor General's Award. In the Blackwells Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry, Moritz is one of four major Canadian poets discussed as having emerged since Ondaatje and Atwood.

Early Poems reprints Moritz's first four books of poetry, Here (1975), Black Orchid (1981), Between the Root and the Flower (1982) and The Visitation (1983). In addition, it includes his first collection, New Poems, a long chapbook published in 1974. The poems in this collection were written from 1965 to 1977. These works brought him the Ingram Merril Fellowship in poetry and inclusion in such anthologies as August Kleinzahler's Seven Canadian Poets and Dennis Lee's New Canadian Poets 1970 – 1985.