Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

Poetry Canadian

Impulses

by (author) Manolis Aligizakis

Publisher
Libros Libertad
Initial publish date
May 2009
Category
Canadian
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780981073569
    Publish Date
    May 2009
    List Price
    $14.95

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

Impulses conjures a mosaic of old world images, tiled with colours and dilemmas from the present. Manolis ransacks his classical Greek roots and the cosmopolitan now, to unearth some meaning for his modern existence. He wrestles with such timeless subjects as the value of human life, innocence and aging. These poems move with contrasting moods, as eroticism is juxtaposed with isolation, and intimacy is wedged between dark humour and sheer outrage

About the author

Manolis (Emmanuel Aligizakis) was born in the small village Kolibari west of Chania on the Greek island of Crete in 1947. At a young age his family moved first to Thessaloniki and then to Athens where he was educated, achieving a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Sciences at the Panteion University of Athens. He served in the armed forces for two years, and emigrated to Vancouver in 1973, where he worked in several different jobs over the years. He attended Simon Fraser University for a year, taking English Literature in a non-degree program. He has written three novels and a large number of collections of poetry, which are slowly appearing as published works. Various articles, poems and short stories in Greek as well as in English have appeared in various magazines and newspapers in Canada, United States, Australia and Greece. After working as an iron worker, train labourer, taxi driver and stock broker, he now lives in White Rock where he spends his time writing, gardening and traveling. In 2006 he founded Libros Libertad, an unorthodox and independent publishing company in Surrey, BC with the goal of publishing literary books.

Manolis Aligizakis' profile page

Excerpt: Impulses (by (author) Manolis Aligizakis)

Relief

What a relief spring is over and the soldiers with their rifles spouting sunlight through their barrels left They came in the midst of April as if there wasn't any other way for the spring to come but with soldiers holding rifles What a relief frost is over and the chickadee dreams on another nest of another chick or two just another reason for the red jib to unfurl just another reason for the white chapel to be repainted in whitewash

Editorial Reviews

Impulses conjures a mosaic of old world images, tiled with colours and dilemmas from the present. Manolis ransacks his classical Greek roots and the cosmopolitan now, to unearth some meaning for his modern existence. He wrestles with such timeless subjects as the value of human life, innocence and aging. These poems move with contrasting moods, as eroticism is juxtaposed with isolation, and intimacy is wedged between dark humour and sheer outrage.

Apryl Leaf