A paean to iconic personalities

Moving, intriguing, and exquisite, this collection is a paean to the iconic personalities Marty Gervais has met and written about during his career as both a poet and a journalist and includes poems about such diverse characters as Muhammad Ali, Mother Teresa, Benjamin Spock, Norman Mailer, Karen Kain and Thomas Merton. Each poem narrows the focus to one little detail about them, a slice of a memoir but in poetic form.

Marty Gervais was appointed Windsor's first Poet Laureate in 2011. Gervais has written more than a dozen books of poetry, as well as two plays and a novel. He is an award—winning journalist, poet, photographer and editor. In 1998, he won Toronto's prestigious Harbourfront Festival Prize for his contributions to Canadian letters and to emerging writers. He has won more than two dozen journalism awards for his work with the Windsor Star where he was best known for his "My Town" column. As a poet, Gervais was awarded the Milton Acorn People's Poetry Award in 1996 for his book Tearing Into A Summer Day. That same book was also awarded the City of Windsor Mayor's Award for literature. Gervais won the same award again in 2003 for To Be Now: Selected Poems. He received the Queen's Jubilee Medal in 2012.

Marty Gervais' profile page