Wednesday 31 December 2008

Palmu's blurbs

Brian Palmu, who is quietly emerging as one of the sharper poetry critics in the Canadian blogosphere (admittedly, not a big group to begin with), gives us his notes to the 83 books of poetry he read in 2008 -- that's probably 82 more than any sane, well-adjusted man should have to read.

Three Signal books were implicated in this herculean task: Postscript by Geoffrey Cook, Red Ledger by Mary Dalton and The Power to Move by Susan Glickman (out of print, but available in her selected Running in Prospect Cemetery). Brian liked two of the three. To find out which, you'll need to read the whole thing (not an unreasonable request given the keen concision and provocativeness of the individual entries -- you'll enjoy it).

I'm especially grateful for his appreciation of the very fine Anglo-Quebec poet Ralph Gustafson, who appears twice. (Vehicule published Gustafson's Selected in 2001).

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