A collection of lyric pieces, The Time of Icicles is anchored in the author's experience of Newfoundland, but these poems are of a continent, a century. An underlying preoccupation of the volume is with states of struggle-of people, cultures, vegetation, of language itself. Moving from moods of sly irony to haunting sadness, this music of dissolution in one sense sabotages its own cry, for it affirms, in its wide-ranging allusiveness and its suppleness of line, the joy of wordmusic. Out of the wreck of contemporary existence what can be salvaged? An undaunted looking, a saying, a singing. Singing become act.

Edited by Mary Dalton, Sean O'Brien, Chase Twichell, Niyi Osundare et al.

Mary Daltpon is the author of five books of poetry including Merrybegot winner of the 2005 E.J. Pratt Poetry Award. Her new collection Hooking was published Spring 2013. She is a Professor of English at Memorial University, St. John’s Newfoundland.

Sean O’Brien is a UK poet, critic, broadcaster, anthologist and editor. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University. His poetry collection November was shortlisted for the 2011 T. S. Eliot Prize and the 2012 International Griffin Poetry Prize.

Chase Twichell is the winner of the prestigious Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Award (2011) and the Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award (1997). She has received numerous fellowships for her seven books of poetry.

Niyi Osundare Osundare is a Nigerian poet, playwright, essayist and scholar. He has authored 18 books of poetry. His many prizes include the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. He is currently Distinguished Professor of English at the University of New Orleans.

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