David McFadden travels around Newfoundland. Who knows which was most charmed
In An Innocent in Ireland (1995) and An Innocent in Scotland (1999), poet and traveller David McFadden let the spirit of the country – and his own interests – guide his rambles. He has now done the same in Newfoundland.

Zigzagging across the province in his rented car, he charts an erratic course, admiring lawn sculpture (in his opinion a new local art), visiting fellow poets and publishers, wandering at dusk among the Viking mounds at L’Anse aux Meadows, rooming with a Salvation Army family in a distant outport (and discovering a family tragedy), hanging on in a stiff wind to watch birds nesting on a cliff face, and enjoying the social life in countless bars and restaurants.

It soon becomes clear that McFadden’s love of a good chat is shared widely by the people he meets in Newfoundland and he is wise enough to let them tell their own stories. For, as ever, his interest is in the heart of a place – and not just its scenery.

Alert, somewhat eccentric, always ready to amuse and be amused, David McFadden is an ideal travelling companion.

David W. McFadden has been publishing poetry since the early 1960s. Why Are You So Sad? Selected Poems of David W. McFadden (Insomniac Press) was shortlisted for the 2008 Canadian Griffin Prize for Poetry, and Be Calm, Honey (Mansfield Press) was shortlisted for the 2009 Governor General’s Award for Poetry (his third such nomination). In 2013, McFadden won the Canadian Griffin Prize for Poetry for What’s the Score? (Mansfield Press). He is the author of about 30 books of poetry, fiction, and travel writing. McFadden lives in Toronto.

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