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A collection of eighty-seven poems about everyday scences and events. ... Read more

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George Bowering has always maintained that his poems are germinated in secret ways - secrets he has, until now, assiduously kept to himself. In suddenly giving most of those secrets away, "Vermeer's Light" constitutes an extraordinary gesture of generosity from a poet to his readership. Its alphabet series A, You're Adorable, by "Ellen Field," a pseudonym Bowering often used; Imaginary Poems for AMB, addressed to his late wife Angela; He Is Not, a micro-translation of "Shelley's Adonais"; Q&A, which dares to take on the most fundamental questions of the human condition with level-headed honesty and wit - the list of revelations and the pyrotechnics of Bowering's craft presented here are spellbinding. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Reviewed by Michelle Boucher-Ladd
As Canada's first Poet Laureate, George Bowering's collection of poetry is, as one might expect, exceptional. Vermeer's Light is a wonderful collection that every aspiring poet would be obliged to get. While, including some wonderfully wordy poems such as Word on Water? Ask a Stupid Question, Lost in the Library, and Ellen Field's Analphabet book for Wilbur Snowshoe, nothing in this collection is over long. It is a fine tuned body, where every word has weight.

The shorter poems are crisp and intriguing studies. While some of them are dark and edgy such as the Sitting in Vancouver poems, Three Political Falltime Haiku, and ASQ others pay wonderful homage. I love the Williams Carlos Williams rewrites:
Metro Spring

The apparition
of these white chickens
in the crowd, petals
on a wet red wheelbarrow

And (my favorite):
Pictures from Bill

According to Williams
when Icarus fell
it was no big deal.

Being a librarian I am naturally drawn to Bowering's Lost in the Library. It has a witty craft and a lovely "rime." This poem makes me doubt George Bowering's staying power as "infinitesimal." I love best the second section:
2.
I'm a wreck
in the bibliotheque.

I've got time
I've got rime,

I've got a really dirty neck.

I can't write my way
out of a wet paper Dewey decimal.

Right now my skill
and most of my will
are infinitesimal.


The last quarter of this book is what makes it a must have for any student of poetry. Rewriting My Grandfather shares poetry as process. It is incredibly insightful, dispelling the myths of writing. It also makes a brief tourist stop out of the work that goes into making a poem poetry. George Bowering's art is a monument well worth the stop and revisit.


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Fiction. Across Canada's wild west of the 1800s, brothers Allan, Charlie, Archie and sidekick Alex Hare were known as the McLean gang. They were also known as "breeds" -- outcasts caught between the cultures - Alex Hare, a Metis, and Allan, Charlie and Archie, brothers of mixed Salish and Scottish blood. They roamed the high Chilcotin ranch country of British Columbia in the 1870s, cattle rustling, stealing and creating high-spirited mayhem. Until one frozen, crystalline morning in 1879, when they crossed the line and shot two men in cold blood, one of them, Johnny Ussher, the local sheriff. Tracked down by a posse of over 100 men, the McLean Gang were eventually trapped and besieged. "With powerful imagery and crisp narration, Bowering delivers a stinging commentary on the desperation of racism in the harsh environment of the Canadian West"--Publisher's Weekly. ... Read more

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George Bowering is one of the country`s most respected and beloved authors. In his remarkable career, he has written more than forty books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, winning the Governor-General`s Award twice. A Magpie Life is a memoir of a literary life. It is vintage Bowering - funny, self-deprecating and perceptive - and as wide-ranging as his interests. And in true Bowering style, it delights in surprising the reader with profound understanding carefully cloaked by wry humour. Dispensing with the details of his life in the opening "Alphabiography," a witty and moving account in which the important aspects of his life are detailed alphabetically, Bowering settles down to write the story of the literary influences on his life and writing. The reader is treated to a wonderful portrait of the renegade young hipsters who founded the landmark literary magazine Tish in Vancouver in the early 60s; to insights into the structure and style of the poets who influenced his own writing; and to what it was like to carve a writing life from the western edge of the Canadian literary renaissance. A Magpie Life will forever ruin Bowering`s carefully-crafted image as the western rube. It`s funny and smart and one of the best literary memoirs you`ll read. (2001) ... Read more