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Poetry Canadian

Resumption of Play, The

by (author) Gary Geddes

Publisher
Quattro Books
Initial publish date
Mar 2016
Category
Canadian, Native American
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781927443873
    Publish Date
    Mar 2016
    List Price
    $18.00

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Out of print

This edition is not currently available in bookstores. Check your local library or search for used copies at Abebooks.

Description

The gripping title poem of The Resumption of Play, which won the 2015 Malahat Review Long Poem Prize, dramatizes the traumatic experience and enduring legacy of Canada's Indian residential schools. The book is also about coming to terms with grief and loss, including a special elegiac sequence about the poet's mother, dead at age 35, and another about Pound, Brodsky, Stravinsky and Diaghelev called "On Being Dead in Venice." This exciting new cornucopia from one of Canada's premier poets also includes two prison letters from Somalia and lyrics about Virginia Woolf, Bronwen Wallace, misogyny, obstacles to belief, and the healing power of poetry.

About the author

Gary Geddes was born in Vancouver and raised mostly on the west coast, where he gill netted, loaded boxcars at BC Sugar Refinery, stocked shelves at Woodwards, worked as a fishing guide at Whytecliffe, taught on Texada Island, and drove water-taxi. After doing graduate studies at Reading University in England and at the University of Toronto, he embarked on a varied career as a writer, teacher, editor, and publisher. Gary taught for twenty years at Concordia University in Montreal before returning to the west coast, where he was appointed Distinguished Professor of Canadian Culture at Western Washington University (1998-2001) and served as writer-in-residence at Green College (UBC), and the Vancouver Public Library. He has written and edited more than thirty-five books of poetry, fiction, drama, non-fiction, criticism, translation and anthologies, including 20th Century Poetry & Poetics and 15 Canadian Poets Times 3. His literary awards include the E.J. Pratt Medal and Prize (1970), the National Poetry Prize (1981), the Americas Best Book Award in the 1985 Commonwealth Poetry Competition, National Magazine Gold Award (1987), the Writers Choice Award (1988), Archibald Lampman Prize (1990 and 1996), the Poetry Book Society Recommendation (1996) and the Gabriela Mistral Prize (1996), which he shared with Nobel laureates Octavio Paz and Vaclav Havel and with Rafael Alberti, Ernesto Cardenal, and Mario Benedetti. Gary Geddes lives on Vancouver Island, where he divides his time between Victoria and French Beach.

Gary Geddes' profile page

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