Selected Poems: 1977-1997 - Softcover

Lane, Patrick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1550171747 ISBN 13: 9781550171747

Publisher: Harbour Publishing, 1997

Synopsis

Patrick Lane, one of Canada's most distinguished and acclaimed poets, has published over twenty books of poetry in his long career. This collection, the only comprehensive book of his poetry since 1988, gathers together the work of two decades, presenting his best work as a mature poet.

About this title

About the Author

Patrick Lane, considered by most writers and critics to be one of Canada's finest poets, was born in 1939 in Nelson, BC. He grew up in the in the Kootenay and Okanagan regions of the BC Interior, primarily in Vernon. He came to Vancouver and co-founded a small press, Very Stone House with bill bissett and Seymour Mayne. He then drifted extensively throughout North and South America. He has worked at a variety of jobs from labourer to industrial accountant, but much of his life has been spent as a poet, having produced twenty-four books of poetry to date. He is also the father of five children and grandfather of nine. He has won nearly every literary prize in Canada, from the Governor General's Award to the Canadian Authors Association Award to the Dorothy Livesay Prize. In 2014, he became an Officer of the Order of Canada, an honour that recognizes a lifetime of achievement and merit of a high degree. His poetry and fiction have been widely anthologized and have been translated into many languages. Lane now makes his home in Victoria, BC, with his companion, the poet Lorna Crozier.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

WINTER 31
What the child finds in snow is what a ship finds
in the sea, a wake left behind, a froth
that sinks back into itself everyone else
waiting for the return, the full hold,
the grain come again, the hosannas
which are prayers to plenty. The child knows
nothing of this. He has been sent out to play
and has discovered misery.
He is learning that the footsteps he finds in snow
are his and his alone. How sweet his lament,
this silence in the negative world of cold.
It is a kind of perfect mutiny, everyone waiting
and him knowing there will be no return.
If he were a priest he would say:
This is the end of the first lesson.
THE FIRST TIME
The first time
I saw a chicken
run headless
across the yard

I wanted
to do it too

I wanted
to kill something
so perfectly
it would live
DINNER
I would like to have dinner with the man
who didn't follow Christ, the one who,
when Jesus said Follow me and I
will make you fishers of men, decided
to go fishing instead, getting in his boat,
pushing out from shore, his nets clean
and repaired, thinking I will have to work
even harder now in order to feed
everyone left behind. I would like
to sit on the beach with him
in front of a careful fire,
his wife and children asleep,
sharing a glass of wine, both of us
telling stories about what we've done
with our lives, the ones we caught,
the ones that got away.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harbour Publishing
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 1550171747
• ISBN 13: 9781550171747
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128