Poetry that breaks the spells of secrets and denial, solitude and memory.Following on his first poetry collection, The Hermit’s Kiss, Richard Teleky continues his exploration of solitude, memory, and the consolations of art in this new volume. The pull of the natural world, the loss of a beloved parent, an inherited family garden, and the claims of the imagination (from a Bartók piano concerto and characters in Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard to celebrities like Dolly Parton) are just a few of the subjects that Teleky turns to with passionate detachment and surreal wit. Using a range of verse forms, including the villanelle, elegies, and the contemporary sonnet. He creates a hermitage out of real and imaginary gardens, and the ephemeral nature of music. “Learn to carry the night / like a gift overdue,” Teleky writes near the end of The Hermit in Arcadia, challenging himself, and his readers, to stand firm before the weight of passing time.

Richard Teleky,
a Professor in the Humanities Department of York University, is a critically acclaimed fiction writer, poet, and critic. His books include the novels Winter in Hollywood, Pack Up the Moon, and The Paris Years of Rosie Kamin (which received the Ribalow Prize and was chosen the Vermont Book of the Year); a collection of short fiction, Goodnight, Sweetheart and Other Stories; two poetry collections, The Hermit in Arcadia and The Hermit's Kiss; and a study of Central European culture and literature, Hungarian Rhapsodies: Essays on Ethnicity, Identity and Culture. He has also edited two fiction anthologies: The Oxford Book of French-Canadian Short Stories and The Exile Book of Canadian Dog Stories. His short stories, poems, and essays have appeared in numerous journals in Canada and the United States, and he is a contributor to Queen's Quarterly.

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