The Thin Smoke of the Heart (The Hugh Maclennan Poetry Series) (Volume 6) - Softcover

Bowling, Tim

Softcover

ISBN 10: 077351905X ISBN 13: 9780773519053

Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000

Synopsis

A bald eagle in a riverside fir stares at the uncarved faces of a thousand pumpkins sagging into frost behind a barn of faded planks. Hours pass. Who will blink first? It is that sort of morning for the heart; the living are giving the dead an honest test.

A man has walked out to be alone with the earth. A man of his age, he equates time with grief most days, but now he has decided to wait. In the silence, where do his raised eyes fit?

I'm not that man, I'm not between the fir and the rot of the pumpkin fields, but I'll pick up the gauntlet of his morning nonetheless,

stand to the side of the fierce contest and not make the eyes of the eagle shift.

About this title

About the Author

Tim Bowling has published numerous poetry collections, including "Low Water Slack; Dying Scarlet" (winner of the 1998 Stephan G. Stephansson Award for poetry); "Darkness and Silence" (winner of the Canadian Authors Association Award for Poetry); "The Witness Ghost"; and "The Memory Orchard" (both nominated for the Governor General's Literary Award). He is also the author of three novels, "Downriver Drift" (Harbour), "The Paperboy's Winter" (Penguin) and "The Bone Sharps" (Gaspereau Press). His first book of non-fiction, "The Lost Coast: Salmon, Memory and the Death of Wild Culture" (Nightwood Editions), was shortlisted for three literary awards: The Writers' Trust Nereus Non-Fiction Award, the BC Book Prizes' Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize and the Alberta Literary Awards' Wilfred Eggleston Award for Non-Fiction. "The Lost Coast" was also chosen as a 2008 Kiriyama Prize "Notable Book." Bowling is the recipient of the Petra Kenney International Poetry Prize, the National Poetry Award and the Orillia International Poetry Prize. Bowling was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008. A native of the West Coast, he now lives in Edmonton Alberta. His latest collection of poetry is "Tenderman" (Nightwood), due out in fall 2011.

Review

"There is a resolve, a high moral purpose to everything Bowling is doing here, coupled with a compelling melancholy and an astounding level of artistry. With his grasp of the human condition and his lyric gifts, he has the tools to become not just a good poet, but a great one." Arc "Bowling's poems exceed expectations. His universe, suffused with the flux of water, is wondrous." UBC Chronicle

Edition details

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 077351905X
• ISBN 13: 9780773519053
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 90