People who rely on stereotypes are often vilified. But really, is there a better way to classify people? There are some taxonimical difficulties, though. Exactly how many types of people are there? What behaviours are characteristic of each particular group? How do you know if you’ve spotted an armchair psychologist or a kleptomaniac?

Gabe Foreman's A Complete Encyclopedia of Different Types of People is not your average reference book. It turns a series of sociological case studies into a functional encyclopedia that doubles as a unique, achingly funny, always engaging collection of poems. 'Bridesmaids,' 'Day Traders,' 'Entomologists' and 'Number Crunchers' are all dutifully catalogued in a series of luminously strange, compellingly original lyric and prose poems

The resulting field guide to our disparate humanity is often absurd, sometimes sad and frequently a mixture of both, as each entry unravels according to its own spidery logic.

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Gabe Foreman was born in Thunder Bay. He has worked as a tree planter in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. He’s a co-founder of littlefishcartpress, and his writing has appeared in a number of literary journals including Grain, Fiddlehead and Event. His work placed second in CV2’s two-day poem contest and a selection was shortlisted for the CBC Literary Awards. Currently, he lives in Montreal, where he manages the soup kitchen at a long-established mission.

Gabe Foreman's profile page

‘A Complete Encyclopedia of Different Types of People is the private abecedary of a playful but serious imagination, a field guide to daydreams and frailties ... Make no mistake about it: We are in a golden age of Canadian poetry.’
– Michael Lista, National Post

‘This compendium of bipeds makes all others obsolete. A Complete Encyclopedia of Different Types of People is full of eclectic wisdom, uncanny beasts and refracted truisms. Foreman’s cerebral sleights-of-hand are so electric, my mind wouldn’t close my eyes. It’s about time someone got “us�* down for what we are.’ – Jeramy Dodds, author of Crabwise to the Hounds