The Singer’s Broken Throat is a collection of poems that trace a path through both physical and emotional landscapes; each step of the narrative way is marked by an event of the heart; each image is a map of person and place. Des Walsh’s fourth book of poetry echoes his extensive film and theatre work: the voices here are always dramatic and present, not passive and absent, even when the poems are elegiac in form and substance, even when their subject is historic. These poems disclose the fragility and wonderment of relationships, as well as remind us that we are all alive to each other, inextricable from our frames in both time and space.

Walsh’s ancestors, who crossed the cold grey Atlantic from the rock of Ireland to the rock of Newfoundland, clamour to be seen and heard by the living in these poems, to remain visible in the fabric created by the often frozen, often trembling, often grasping, sometimes gentle hands of the living.

There is no attempt to create an artificially poetic voice here; there is no attempt to impose an exclusivity of language, purged of things unpoetic. These poems tell the truth, unabashedly, mystically and sometimes in a way that is violently Catholic. That in itself is reason to celebrate.

Desmond Walsh is a veritable cultural icon in Newfoundland, with six books of poetry published, including the acclaimed Love and Savagery, which was adapted for a motion picture by Morag Films in 2009. Talonbooks released the second edition of Love and Savagery concurrent with the film’s release. Walsh is also a noted screenwriter, playwright and musician. He was the 2001 and 2003 playwright-in-residence at the Playwright’s Workshop in Montreal and at Memorial University’s Grenfell College in Corner Brook, respectively. He also scripted the mini-series adaptation of Bernice Morgan’s Random Passage and Waiting for Time, which aired on the CBC in 2002, commenting that: “Morgan’s works are sacred material because they are, finally, our story.” Along with John Smith and Sam Grana, he co-wrote the intensely popular and critically acclaimed miniseries The Boys of St. Vincent. Having encountered the public education system in Placentia and St. John’s, he left school in grade ten, famously claiming it did nothing for him. His awards include a Gemini, a New York Festival Award, Italy’s Umbria Fiction Award, and Best Series (Cannes International TV Festival), all for co-writing The Boys of St. Vincent. Walsh currently divides his time between New Bonaventure, Trinity Bay and St. John’s.

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