Poetry that explores how accidental voyeurism can force reconsideration and reconciliation

White·out: n. a surface condition … in which no object casts a shadow, the horizon cannot be seen, and only dark objects are discernible …

Whiteout: when the heavy weather of daily life establishes the measure of the measureless; when the predatory nature of the accidental conjures cowboys and the comatose; when the sickly sweet pop of life underfoot contrasts the televised image, shrinking to a pinprick.

Whiteout: calques and towers, twin polar storms, falling, burning.

Whiteout: “a book of white nothing.”

George Murray’s sixth collection has been a decade in the making. At once taut, tender and terrifying, haunted and haunting, Whiteout shatters convention in the collision of order and rage, formlessness and hard-won serenity.

George Murray's three previous books of poetry include The Hunter (McClelland & Stewart, 2003) and The Cottage Builder's Letter (M&S, 2001). His poems, fiction and criticism have appeared in many publications in Canada, the US, the UK, Australia and Europe. Murray won the 2003 New York Festivals Radio and Television Gold Medal for Best Writing for his broadcast poem "Anniversary: A Personal Inventory" and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is the editor and publisher of the popular literary website Bookninja.com and a contributing editor for several literary magazines, including Canadian Notes and Queries and The Drunken Boat. He lives in St. John's, Newfoundland.

George Murray's profile page

• Short-listed, Atlantic Poetry Prize
• Short-listed, E.J. Pratt Poetry Award

“There’s something unique about [Murray's] poems, and more importantly, something powerful that stirs readers, poem after poem after poem.” —Salty Ink

“Murray's celebrated lyric virtuosity is tempered, or rather, deepened, by the kind of knowing humility that makes for great drinking songs. Whiteout speaks in the wry, stunned voice of a man answering time's wake-up call." — The Globe and Mail

“Work offers alternative visions of whiteout conditions, in which it is impossible to see what lies ahead." —The Georgia Straight

"I think this is Murray’s best book. It’s short, lean and long-gestating, and the poems sport a lightly worn formality that feels organic, never decorative." —National Post