A Casual Guy

In a long, penetrating review of Don Coles' Where We Might Have Been, David Godkin explores the strengths and weakness of Coles's style, which he defines as:

"a poetry that is relaxed, fluid and variable in the way that good prose is fluid and variable, a casualness that is indispensable to good conversation and absolutely central to that peculiarly Oxbridgean sensibility that unfolds from Coles’ longer episodic narratives. Chatty, charming, “offhand” as Margaret Atwood and others ardent fans have put it, Coles poems are not so much pressured from beneath by the urgency of what must be said as preempted by the impulse to charm and subtly provoke his readers."

Holiday Recommendation, Ctd

In an entertaining round-up of "five newish Canadian poetry books," Rob Taylor recommends Where We Might Have Been by Don Coles, a poet he calls "the king of the killer ending." Read it here.

CAA Literary Awards

I'm happy to announce that Don Coles' Where We Might Have Been has been short-listed for The Canadian Authors Association Award for Poetry. Winners will be announced on June 23rd. More info here.

Don Coles Reax, Ctd

The fine UK poet John McAuliffe seems very taken with Don Coles' Where We Might Have Been.

"Born in 1927, Don Coles began publishing poems in 1975 and over the past 35 years has produced ten books which possess a distinctive tone, both casual and observant, while fiercely arranging and sequencing those seeming casual observations to make beguiling poems which combine artifice and spontaneity with unusual conviction."

Read the rest here.