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Poetry General

The Tantramar Re-Vision

by (author) Kevin Irie

Publisher
McGill-Queen's University Press
Initial publish date
Aug 2021
Category
General, Canadian
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780228006374
    Publish Date
    Aug 2021
    List Price
    $19.95

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Description

I've lived the way a field is sometimes / a shelter for mice / or sometimes a source of game / for a hawk

Inspired by the literary landscape of the late poet John Thompson, Kevin Irie's The Tantramar Re-Vision presents a portrait of nature where the benign and the bedevilled coexist, collude, or collide.

The Tantramar Re-Vision charts routes of discovery as it follows trails, waterways, flights, and fears, be it through the woods, the wilds, the page, or the mind where "it's hard to admit / you are not to your taste." It questions an existence in which the inhuman thrives, ignorant of divinity, while the human psyche continues to search for answers as "life takes directions / away from" it. The Tantramar Marsh setting of John Thompson's Stilt Jack resonates with Irie's landscapes of birds, fish, plants, and wildlife, all still within reach yet part of a world where "wind carries sounds / it cannot hear."

Insightful and meditative, The Tantramar Re-Vision is poetry of the inner self and the outside observer, a poetic testament to the ways literature creates its own landmarks and nature survives without knowing a word.

About the author

Kevin Irie is a poet and the author of five previous collections, including Viewing Tom Thomson: A Minority Report. He lives in Toronto.

Kevin Irie's profile page