Poems that take the skin off emotion, let laughs out like hens from the roost: Skrag, farm mongrel, springs to the whistle in bony narrative, endearing as the musk he charms and obeys; "Descartes & Dick," mad-cap Western, turns Descartes loose on a plane of rustic lunacies where cowboys attend closely upon ladies and the finer points of grammar; lyrics, including "The Cottage Poems," stray through a landscape of pain and rejoicing where those who wait are sustained by the smallest miracles.

David Arnason was born in Gimli, Manitoba, in 1940. He has a Master’s Degree from the University of Manitoba and a PhD from the University of New Brunswick. He divides his time between Winnipeg, where he teaches Canadian literature and creative writing at the University of Manitoba, and Gimli, where he does most of his writing. He has also taught Canadian literature and creative writing in Tasmania, Trier, and Strasbourg.His works include two collections of poetry, Marsh Burning and Skrag, and four collections of short stories: Fifty Stories and a Piece of Advice, The Circus Performer’s Bar, The Happiest Man in the World, and The Pagan Wall.

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