From the former Poet Laureate of Ottawa, his ninth collection of poetry

Hemispere of Love reflrects the author's passion and honesty as he delves into the mystery of love and strives to bring order to human experience. In this collection a range of scenes and sitations is carefully carved in words and couched in meaphor. Geographical and spiritual boundaries, shifting tonalities, and moods carry the reader into Dabydeen's complex universe. Janus-faces, he continually looks forward and backward.

"A fine craftsman and a wonderful weaver of images and rhythms." - Kwame Dawes, World Literature Today

"... skilled, crafted, layered, full of contrasts." - Books in Canada, of Stoning the Wind

"A gifted Canadian poet." - The Toronto Star

"His work reflects a unique sense of history and consciousness, making him distinctive ... he bends both outsider and insider perspectives of Canada in a compelling vision." - Joy Kogawa

Cyril Dabydeen has published more than a dozen books of prose and poetry in the United Kingdom and Canada, including the novel Dark Swirl and the story collections My Brahmin Days, Black Jesus and Other Stories, and Jogging in Havana. The City of Ottawa appointed him Poet Laureate in the mid-1980s and granted him the first Award of Excellence for Writing and Publishing. He lives in Ottawa, Ontario.

Cyril Dabydeen's profile page

"His work reflects a unique sense of history and consciousness, making him distinctive...he blends both outsider and insider perspectives of Canada in a
compelling vision." - JOY KOGAWA

"A fine craftsman, and a wonderful weaver of images and rhythms,"
- KWAME DAWES, World Literature Today

"...skilled, crafted, layered, full of contrasts" - Books in Canada

"A gifted Canadian poet," - Toronto Star

"Dabydeen's poetry has Stravinsky rhythms." - The Ottawa Citizen