Local News walks us through the familiar spaces in our homes and lives and guides our eyes to view the world in a renewed light. Whether meandering the aisles of the neighbourhood drugstore or digging out back through the tool shed, Downie shows a vivid and self-aware world that is not soon to be forgotten.

Glen Downie worked in cancer care in Vancouver for many years, and now lives in Toronto (and at www.glendownie.com). He served a term as Writer-in-Residence at Dalhousie University's Medical Humanities Program, and won the Toronto Book Award for his 2007 Loyalty Management. He has letterpress-printed signed broadsides by Canadian and American poets (available through www.talltreepress.com). His most recent collection is Democratic Beauties, published by Tightrope Books.

Glen Downie's profile page

"This is a fascinating collection — funny, dark, conflicted. It shines a merciless light on how we hoard .... But these poems are also compassionate and imaginative, deeply humane, political and brave in their protest." - Event: Poetry and Prose

"The new book contains poems about the most ordinary places and things, with titles such as 'Clothes Closet,' 'Ladder,' and 'Basement.' Downie observes carefully, and almost perceives feelings from his inanimate subjects. Thus 'Hallway,' accepts indifference. 'But just, dreams the hallway, hold the party, spill the wine on me.'" - Uptown Magazine

"Shoe store to sawdust shop, fork to clothes closet to plumb bob — Glen Downie's Local News?examines these mundane spaces and objects with an inquisitiveness and generosity that gives us a new perspective on the world we build our lives around." - Open Book Toronto