What is a Gun Dog? An uncontrolled creature purportedly under our control? These poems strain at the lead. The torque is felt in the line, the verb, the wild thinking in metaphor. The maturity of James Langer's vision reveals itself here in the cumulative effect of his rhetoric. He won't land on his quarry -- Love, Forgiveness, Respect of Place, Clarity of Memory. He will, however, attain wisdom within these poems, a measured equanimity that can be traced back to the Stoics.

These lines are like those of Les Murray, Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott, and Robin Robertson. Here is a debut from a genuine, fully formed talent whose poems reach the sublime.

James Langer is the poetry editor for The Fiddlehead. His first collection, Gun Dogs, was published in 2009, and his work has appeared in numerous literary journals including TickleAce, lichen, Arc, Grain, Event, Fiddlehead, The Newfoundland Quarterly, Antigonish Review, and Riddle Fence. Originally from Trinity Bay, he now lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

James Langer's profile page

• Short-listed, Gerald Lampert Memorial Award

Assured and mature...striking [in] it's range of allusion, tone, and form...accomplished and entertaining.

Quill & Quire

A spectacular mouthful...musically alert, with marvellous rhythmic and tonal variety . . Langer has a knack for finding words that, placed together, crackle and buzz.

Globe and Mail

When I first read the title poem of Gun Dogs, wild dogs chased through the room where I was reading...In James Langer's marvellous debut collection, words are storm-driven spilling out like fierce, charged poetry. This is a rare book. Sit down, read it, then go back and read it again.

Anne Simpson

Poetry at its best...Gun Dogs - lyrical magical, feisty - provides that firm tug on the sleeve that wrests us from complacency.

Daily Gleaner