Return to Open Water: Poems New and Selected

To Harold Rhenisch, poetry is a wisdom path equal to Zen, or a pilgrimage on the holy road from Seville to Minsk. In this spirited celebration of the creative spirit, Rhenisch presents a vision of the world that places Canada, and poetry, at the crossroads of world culture. Included are a hymn for whales, a love poem for herring, black-comic stagings of Shakespeare, tongue-in-cheek deconstructions and celebrations of philosophy and literature, laments for the missteps of history, enraged political blasts, and deep ecological lyrics. Mozart enters riding the bulls into the Williams Lake Stampede, and a rhinestoned Jesus sings Elvis lyrics on a car hoist at Canadian Tire. In Return to Open Water this award-winning poet and critic fuses American, British and European verse traditions into a poetics that re-imagines literature and history and returns them to us in illuminated form. Long-praised for his innovative creative non-fiction and his mastery of the long poem form, Rhenisch presents the roots of that intelligence and its furthest extensions. This "New & Selected" presents the best poems?comical, elegiac, satiric and lyrical? from twelve volumes of verse of one of Canada's best, most original, and most mercurial poets.

"Everything past and present composts in this rich collection of poetry which feeds the roots of the trees Harold Rhenisch persuades into a cathedral shape. This book, a temple with a sweet grass floor, raised voices, echoes, soaring spires and the blessing of rain, is the organic church of poetry."

?Linda Rogers

Terry Glavin is a BC author and journalist whose writing has appeared in various newspapers and magazines, including a regular column in the Georgia Straight. His writing about aboriginal people has earned him several regional and national journalism awards. He is currently the editor of the Transmontanus books series, as well as adjunct professor in the fine arts department of the University of British Columbia. He lives in Victoria, BC.