A Canadian poet's last words

A sense of ego-urgency has seemingly sucked hard on any high octane left in my system, and what used to take me a decade and more to accomplish as a writer has suddenly fruited within a 12-month time frame.
- Joe Sherman, December 2005
The result is Beautiful Veins, Joe Sherman's final book of poems. Joseph Sherman, author of seven books of poetry, editor, and supporter of the arts, died on January 9, 2006, in Charlottetown. He was 60.

Beautiful Veins begins with the picture of a child, of "one life with all the promise of its beautiful veins." Some of the poems catch details of domestic life and its indwelling spirit and glancing irony; they explore the cache of memory. Others evoke history and landscape, opening them up to careful consideration. Always there is a love of language and its quirks, oddities, split-levels, riches. Out of the intricate and elliptical syntax, moments of joy are discovered, named against the threat of time and illness.

Lauréat du prix Gemini, Joseph Sherman est un concepteur, réalisateur et designer d'animation. Il a travaillé sur de nombreuses séries télévisées pour enfants, parmi lesquelles on peut citer Hotel Transylvania: The Series, Esme and Roy pour Sesame Productions et Alma's Way pour Fred Rodgers. Il a également illustré des albums pour enfants, dont Comment attraper un ours qui aime lire et Voyage de nuit à la bibli.

Joseph Sherman's profile page