In This Poem I Am
Selected Poetry of Robin Skelton
- Publisher
- Dundurn Press
- Initial publish date
- Oct 2007
- Category
- Canadian, General, General
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781550027693
- Publish Date
- Oct 2007
- List Price
- $15.99
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781459721227
- Publish Date
- Oct 2007
- List Price
- $7.99
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Description
In a country in which poetry has been largely private and apologetic, Robin Skelton played the part of poet with grand style: flowing beard, mane of white hair, rings on every finger, huge amulet around his neck, all topped off with a black hat that looked as if it came from a Venetian gondolier but was really picked up at the re-enactment of a Cariboo Gold Rush-era general store in Barkerville, B.C.
In this selection of his best verse there are poems of "high" and "low" art, spells and prayers, meditations, shemanic maps, and, in the centre of the book, "messages," those strange, inspired "gifts" at the core of Skelton’s art. In making the selection for this volume, editor Harold Rhenisch, himself an accomplished poet, has held to the image that Skelton’s themes repeat like the ripples of water spreading out from a pebble dropped into a pool, and has attempted to bring together the best ripple from each dropped pebble.
About the authors
Poet, anthologist, editor, teacher, biographer, art and literary critic, historical writer, initiated witch and occultist, Robin Skelton came to Canada in 1963, the author of five collections of poetry and nine other books. He taught at the University of Victoria for almost thirty years, teaching in the Department of English and then in the Department of Creative Writing, of which he was the founding Chairman in 1973. In 1967, together with John Peter, he founded The Malahat Review. He published approximately 1 books. His publications with Beach Holme include Wrestling the Angel (1994) and his newest title One Leaf Shaking (1996). He passed away August 22, 1997 and will be greatly missed.
Harold Rhenisch is an award-winning poet, critic, and cultural commentator. His awards include the Confederation Poetry Prize in 1991 and the BC #38: Yukon Community Newspapers Association Award for Best Arts and Culture Writing in 1996. He is a seven-time runner-up for the CBC/Tilden/Saturday Night Literary Contest. In 2005, he won the ARC Magazine Critics Desk Award for best long poetry review and the Malahat Review Long Poem Prize for "Abandon." He won this prize again in 2007 for "The Bone Yard." His non-fiction book Tom Thomson's Shack was short-listed for two BC Book Prizes in 2000. For its sequel, The Wolves at Evelyn, he won the 2007 George Ryga Award for Social Responsibility in Literature. He is the author of 32 books of poetry, fiction, biography and essays and choreographed Richard Rathwell’s Human Nation for the paper stage. Along with the Norwegian Olav Hauge, he is one of the two poets in the world who learned to write and edit poems by pruning fruit trees, an experience documented in his The Tree Whisperer (Gaspereau, 2021). A direct heir of Bertolt Brecht’s theater, through the dissident playwright and novelist Stefan Schütz, whose radio play Peyote he translated and published, he has invented a theatrical set of cross-genre literary interventions. He has secretly edited and mentored over a hundred writers in the hinterlands of Canada unserved by its university and publishing system and is currently writing a transcultural natural history curriculum and a history of British Columbia centred in the Indian Wars of the American West.
Other titles by
The Voyageur Modern Canadian Literature 5-Book Bundle
The Silence on the Shore / Combat Journal for Place d'Armes / The Donnellys / In This Poem I Am / Canadian Exploration Literature
Facing the Light
One Leaf Shaking
Collected Poems 1977-1990
Long, Long Ago
Edge of Time, The
Or So I Say
A Way of Walking
Islands
Popping Fuchsias
Devious Dictionary, A
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The Salmon Shanties
A Cascadian Song Cycle
Don't Expect the Sun to Shine
A Wake for Robin Blaser
The Tree Whisperer
Writing Poetry by Living in the World
The Art of Haying
A Journey to Iceland
Two Minds
The Voyageur Modern Canadian Literature 5-Book Bundle
The Silence on the Shore / Combat Journal for Place d'Armes / The Donnellys / In This Poem I Am / Canadian Exploration Literature
A Room in the City
Photographs of Gabor Gasztonyi
Rocksalt
An Anthology of Contemporary BC Poetry
Return to Open Water
Poems New and Selected
The Wolves at Evelyn
Journeys through a Dark Century