Catullus’s Soldiers, Daniel Goodwin’s first poetry collection, takes aim at traditional dichotomies: love and war, the personal and the public, high culture and pop culture, the ancient and modern worlds. In accessible but finely crafted poems that are both understated and energetic, the poet moves easily back and forth between seeming antitheses, his field of vision shifting from Roman surgeon Galen reflecting on skills earned in treating the wounds of gladiators, to a contemporary husband and father reluctantly destroying a backyard wasp nest to protect his children. Throughout the collection run three major currents: the poet’s love for his family; his ambivalent reactions to the wider world of politics and war; and his private, persistent, sometimes furtive relationship with the Muse as he wrestles with the limitations and triumphs of art in its ambiguous role of mediating between epic and domestic spheres. Conscious of the need to return poetry to its rightful place in our culture and collective consciousness, Goodwin has dispatched Catullus’s Soldiers to appeal to both confirmed poetry lovers and readers who might not usually pick up a book of verse.

Born in Montreal, Daniel Goodwin grew up in a bookish and artistic Montreal household (Irving Layton was an omnipresent great-uncle, Betty Goodwin a more distant aunt). After a misspent youth writing poetry, he ran away to the East Coast in his mid-twenties to join an oil company. He has since lived in four provinces and worked as a teacher, journalist, corporate communicator and government relations executive, but through it all he continued to write, and his poems and essays have appeared in several Canadian journals and newspapers including Literary Review of Canada, Contemporary Verse II, The Antigonish Review, The Globe and Mail, and Calgary Herald. Goodwin's first novel, Sons and Fathers - about that special relationship, but also about politics, journalism, poetry, and spin - will be published in fall 2014 by Linda Leith Publishing. Goodwin currently lives in Calgary with his wife and three children.

Daniel Goodwin's profile page

• Winner, Vine Award for Canadian Jewish Literature (Poetry)

“Enjoyable, readable, fresh.”

Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature Jury Citation

“Navigating between Hebraic and Hellenic poles, Goodwin portrays a well-rounded, three-dimensional tapestry … Allusive yet accessible, Goodwin wears his learning lightly and with considerable wit … [his] soldier-poets converge on the page in alternating currents of surprise and satisfaction.”

Malahat Review

“Goodwin makes the mundane beautiful and the beautiful accessible within Catullus’s Soldiers. As a collection meant for both seasoned poetry fans and first-time readers, the writing hits its mark. The work is a commentary on language, is packed with metaphor, and Goodwin’s sense of humour winds effortlessly throughout the writing.”

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