erin ontario canada porcupine's quill toronto ontario canada (11 results)

Soft cover. Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. Original printed wraps. 94 pp. Octavo. `As one searches for the reason that Robert Finch's poetry gives such unfailing pleasure, one is reminded of Ezra Pound's saying that ``poetry atrophies when it gets too far from music''. This poetry never gets far from music. Never, indeed, seeks to do so. Robert Finch has expressed himself directly in poetry and painting: in music he has been content to be an executant, though a distinguished one. But the logic, the elegance and the economy of the music he plays so finely on his harpsichord -- the music of the eighteenth century -- invests his poetry because it is evinced in his life. There is some absurdity in speaking of a man of today as belonging to the eighteenth century, just as it is absurd to speak of a poet who writes principally in English as French in spirit. But it is absurd to attempt to speak of anything so elusive as poetry without resorting to some absurdities of expression, and therefore we may let these two comments stand: Robert Finch is French of the eighteenth century in his sensibility and high regard for technical perfection in art.' -- Robertson Davies. Printed offset by Tim Inkster on the Heidelberg KORD at the printing office of the Porcupine's Quill in the Village of Erin, Wellington County, Ontario, Canada. Smyth sewn into 16-page signatures with hand-tipped endleaves front and back.

Soft cover. Condition: New. 1st Edition. Original printed wraps. 128 pp. Octavo. Duet, a vivid and comic account of a stubbornly unromantic romance, is the story of Carman, a retired Toronto policeman, who takes to wandering in the wake of his wife's death. On a whim, he rents a cottage north of Kingston from Norma, the cantankerous proprietor of a rural junk-shop. Sex and death haunt the undergrowth as Carman and Norma grumble and feud, and against the grain of their bad temper begin to create a precarious friendship. Duet is a beautiful novella, but one without prettiness; David Helwig demonstrates a subtle sense of humanity through his creation of two of the prickliest customers in Canadian fiction. Printed offset by Tim Inkster on the Heidelberg KORD at the printing office of the Porcupine's Quill in the Village of Erin, Wellington County, Ontario, Canada. Smyth sewn into 16-page signatures with hand-tipped endleaves, front and back. Signed by Author(s).

Soft cover. Condition: New. 1st Edition. Original printed wraps. 152 pp. Octavo. Movement is the key to this collection. The settings for the stories in Aquarium range from metropolis to hamlet, from a Florida retirement community to a northern Ontario reserve on the brink of freeze-up. The people in Aquarium are as varied as its locales; the characters are landlords, actors, drinkers, painters, teachers, doctors, steelworkers, fishermen, students, shopkeepers, weathermen, clerks and security guards. Couples are a recurrent theme: the dreams and devices by which lovers join or drift apart. Winner of the Third Annual Danuta Gleed Award (2000). Printed offset by Tim Inkster on the Heidelberg KORD at the printing office of the Porcupine's Quill in the Village of Erin, Wellington County, Ontario, Canada. Smyth sewn into 16-page signatures with hand-tipped endleaves, front and back. Signed by Author(s).

Soft cover. Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. Original printed wraps. 64 pp. Octavo. A charming alphabet book, beautifully illustrated, by one of Canada's most renowned poets. Ideal for very young children, and for P. K. Page fans of all ages. But this isn't an ordinary alphabet book, filled with words we all know that go with things we see every day. This alphabet book is special. It's for children and adults who would like to tell a kamichi from a tatu. It speaks English, but it knows a few words of Portuguese. It's written by P. K. Page, one of Canada's most celebrated poets. And it is illustrated with pictures that your great-great-grandmother might have seen as a child. Page has used words that she remembers from her years in Brazil -- words that become refrains in her Brazilian Journal, words that were among the first Portuguese she learned. The illustrations are old engravings, found in forgotten books and century-old magazines. The dona de casa plucks lice from her children's scalps, macacos grin and a thin moon looms in the janela. Grab your zabumba and beat it all the way to the fazenda, with P. K. Page as your guide. Printed offset by Tim Inkster on the Heidelberg KORD at the printing office of the Porcupine's Quill in the Village of Erin, Wellington County, Ontario, Canada. Smyth sewn into 16-page signatures with hand-tipped endleaves front and back. Signed by Author(s).

Soft cover. Condition: New. 1st Edition. Original printed wraps. 64 pp. Octavo. The eighth in an on-going, near thirty-year collaboration between Stratford wood engraver Gerard Brender a Brandis and the Porcupine's Quill that started in 1980 with the publication of Wood, Ink & Paper, which has sold almost 5000 copies in 28 years. Twenty-four new engravings which depict all 27 musical instruments mentioned in Shakespeare. A companion volume to A Gathering of Flowers from Shakespeare (PQL 2006). Printed offset by Tim Inkster on the Heidelberg KORD at the printing office of the Porcupine's Quill in the Village of Erin, Wellington County, Ontario, Canada. Smyth sewn into 16-page signatures with hand-tipped endleaves front and back.

Soft cover. Condition: New. 1st Edition. Original printed wraps. 160 pp. Octavo. Paul Glennon makes a commanding debut with a writing style that is both quirky and elusive. His stories -- strange, yet funny -- are about madmen, paranoiacs and the allegorically burdened. For the characters in these stories life is a board game to which we have lost, or perhaps never had, the instructions. Their predicaments are impossible, absurd but strangely genuine. A husband wonders if his wife has always been made of wood. A scientist suspects his left hand is plotting against him. A tourist visits a museum dedicated to his own failed romance. The world is trying to communicate something to these characters, but they cannot interpret it. These stories navigate an unusual course between science fiction, satire and psychology. It makes for a journey that is strange, disturbing and surreally comic. Shortlisted for the City of Ottawa Book Award (2001) and the ReLit Award in Short Fiction (2001). Printed offset by Tim Inkster on the Heidelberg KORD at the printing office of the Porcupine's Quill in the Village of Erin, Wellington County, Ontario, Canada. Smyth sewn into 16-page signatures with hand-tipped endleaves, front and back. Inscribed by Author(s).

Soft cover. Condition: New. 1st Edition. Original printed wraps. 208 pp. Octavo. In stories of stark passion and haunting trauma, Contrary Angel finds an acute clarity in those moments when human desires meet the sorcery of the world. The stories are exuberantly diverse in both subject matter and technique, as evidenced by a few of their titles: `Urchipelago', `Karaoke Mon Amour', `Cogagwee', `Do Not Stand Outside the Grande Restaurant.' They take us from the brilliant career of the runner Tom Longboat to the comic machinations of a peeping Tom landlord. The final four-story sequence, `Doctors', follows an Egypt-obsessed girl from a savage childhood incident through her `running' years as an athlete, traveller, wife and doctor, culminating in a devastating encounter in an operating room in the middle of the night. Stories from Contrary Angel have appeared twice in The Journey Anthology, twice in Best Canadian Stories, and won the Silver Medal at the National Magazine Awards. Printed offset by Tim Inkster on the Heidelberg KORD at the printing office of the Porcupine's Quill in the Village of Erin, Wellington County, Ontario, Canada. Smyth sewn into 16-page signatures with hand-tipped endleaves, front and back. Signed by Author(s).

Soft cover. Condition: New. 1st Edition. Original printed wraps. 200 pp. Octavo. The Wellington of Sharon English's debut collection is a city unmistakably like her hometown of London, Ont. A linked-story exploration of teenage angst and folly, this book would likely make its author the main event at her high-school reunion - if she dared to show. In the tidy suburb of Greenview, Germaine Stevens joins her friend Jackie in a darkened bedroom. Jackie may have "an idiot" for a dad - but a useful one. He's a drug wholesaler with a station wagon full of samples. To the raw tones of Meat Loaf, the girls pop tabs of Probene "for the relief of stress, anxiety and mental agitation." Barely graduated from building snow forts, the two now collaborate on bedroom shrines to flamed-out rock stars. Jimi Hendrix gets a black baby doll mummified in gauze; Jim Morrison sulks from a poster with X's taped over his eyes. Germaine ("Germ" to her dearest) is our jaded guide to a life cursed with two-faced parents, laughable teachers and gag-making, uncool schoolmates - such as Debbie, who whispers in French class with minty breath, "It's freaky . but I really feel Tony's my destiny." She's even got the diamond to prove it. Printed offset by Tim Inkster on the Heidelberg KORD at the printing office of the Porcupine's Quill in the Village of Erin, Wellington County, Ontario, Canada. Smyth sewn into 16-page signatures with hand-tipped endleaves, front and back. Signed by Author(s).

Soft cover. Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. Original printed wraps. 232 pp. Octavo. `Margaret Avison is a national treasure. For many decades she has forged a way to write, against the grain, some of the most humane, sweet and profound poetry of our time.' -- Griffin Poetry Prize (Judges' Citation). Printed offset by Tim Inkster on the Heidelberg KORD at the printing office of the Porcupine's Quill in the Village of Erin, Wellington County, Ontario, Canada. Smyth sewn into 16-page signatures with hand-tipped endleaves front and back.

Soft cover. Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. Original printed wraps. 192 pp. Octavo. Acclaimed poet P.K. Page weaves together an astonishing range of characters and themes in this remarkable selection of stories written over the last fifty years and collected here for the first time. A Kind of Fiction bears witness to an accomplished prose stylist and displays the same lively and witty intelligence that established her reputation as one of Canada's finest poets. Page emerges as a writer with an agile and playful imagination, comfortable with a range of narrative styles that include the comic and surreal plots of her early pieces from the 1940s, adaptations of Indian and Sufi tales, and the complex psychological portraits of her recent work. Despite the variety of styles and themes, all the stories in this collection bear the imprint of a refined artistic vision and a sense of technique and form which has been the defining characteristic of her distinguished body of poetry. Printed offset by Tim Inkster on the Heidelberg KORD at the printing office of the Porcupine's Quill in the Village of Erin, Wellington County, Ontario, Canada. Smyth sewn into 16-page signatures with hand-tipped endleaves front and back. Signed by Author(s).

Soft cover. Condition: USED_FINE. 1st Edition. Original printed wraps. 160 pp. Octavo. `Described as a book of daydreams, Looking for Snails on a Sunday Afternoon takes the reader into the inner world of Rudolf Kurz, a German-born artist who now calls Orangeville, Ontario home. Part picture book, part personal musing, Kurz uses the precise art of etching to create whimsical creatures and mysterious women who inhabit surreal landscapes full of hidden life. Leashed dinosaurs stroll down the sidewalk like giant pets, or become circus performers precariously balanced on the high wire. A gnarled tree trunk is transformed into a strolling mastodon, and a shrunken elephant hitches a ride on a giant snail. . Kurz trained as a medical doctor before becoming an artist. He has clearly been influenced by the anatomical drawings of Renaissance Europe. His etchings are full of intricate detail, which reveal layer upon layer of hidden reality. Each is worth a second and third look. Beautifully printed on thick, textured paper, Looking for Snails is a sensory rather than intellectual experience. It is nice to know that such frivolous delights can still find a publisher.' -- Nicole Laidler, scenemagazine. Printed offset by Tim Inkster on the Heidelberg KORD at the printing office of the Porcupine's Quill in the Village of Erin, Wellington County, Ontario, Canada. Smyth sewn into 16-page signatures with hand-tipped endleaves front and back. Signed by Illustrator(s).