In his latest collection of poems, Ken Norris poses the question: "Why does it take so long to understand / you're living in the masterpiece?" Often Autumnal in spirit and retrospective in their point of view, the poems in Living In The Masterpiece survey the territory and landscape of a life lived variously. Norris looks back over a lifetime that was almost evenly divided between the United States and Canada, offering us his different and incisive perspectives. Of the USA he writes "I just take a taxi / from pizza to pizza / in this land covered in cheese," while he describes Canada as "an open book / with unwritten pages," where "some sense resides. And limits / are placed on tragedy porn."

Equally at ease with the late visionary poetry of W.B. Yeats, the noir of Raymond Chandler, and the compelling blues of B.B. King as artistic influences, Norris takes the reader on an intriguing poetical tour of cultural, personal and spiritual life in the first quarter of the twenty-first century. Living In The Masterpiece is an important meditation on mortality and the increasingly strange world that we inhabit.

Ken Norris was born in New York City in 1951. He emigrated to Canada in the early seventies, where he quickly became one of the infamous Vehicule Poets, essential in helping to develop and maintain a particular style of Anglo-poetry in Montreal.

One of Canada’s most prolific poets, Ken Norris has always given his readers subtly capricious and edgy poetry that reveals unanticipated possibilities and explores new horizons. He is the author of two dozen books and chapbooks of poetry, and is the editor of eight anthologies of poetry and poetics. His work has been widely anthologized in Canada and throughout the English-speaking world, as well as published in translation in France, Belgium, Israel and China. Quebec poet Pierre Des Ruisseaux has translated two of his books into French, La route des limbes (Limbo Road, Écrits des Forges) and Hotel Montréal (Éditions du Noroît).

Norris teaches Canadian literature and creative writing at the University of Maine. He divides his time between Canada, the United States and Asia.

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