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Lurch by Don McKay
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Lurch

By Don McKay

By Don McKay

By Don McKay

By Don McKay

Best Seller

Category: Poetry

Category: Poetry

Paperback $16.95

Aug 03, 2021 | ISBN 9780771057854

Ebook $12.99

Aug 03, 2021 | ISBN 9780771057861

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    Lurch by Don McKay
    Paperback $16.95
    Aug 03, 2021 | ISBN 9780771057854

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    • Paperback $16.95

      Aug 03, 2021 | ISBN 9780771057854

      Buy from Other Retailers:

    Ebook
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    • Ebook

      Aug 03, 2021 | ISBN 9780771057861

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    About Lurch

    “[McKay’s] exuberantly musical and shrewd poems are ecological in the fullest sense of the word: they seek to elucidate our relationships with our fragile dwelling places both on the earth and in our own skins.” —New York Times Book Review

    An extraordinary collection of poems from Griffin Poetry Prize winner Don McKay.


     
    Old joke: “What’s the difference between a lurch and a dance step?”
     
    “I don’t know.”
     
    “I didn’t think so. Let’s sit down.”
     
    These poems are what happens when you stay out on the dance floor instead, dancing the staggers. The full moon rises from the ocean and you lurch with astonishment that we live on a rocky sphere whirling in space. Or the bird in your hand—a pipit or a storm petrel—conveys the exquisite frailty of existence. And there’s the complex of lurches as we contemplate our complicity in the sixth mass extinction.
     
    Throughout Lurch, language dances its ardent incompetence as a translator of “the profane wonders of the wilderness,” whether manifest as Balsam Fir, Catbirds, the extinct Eskimo Curlew, or the ever-present Cosmic Microwave Background.
     
    What is the difference between a love song and an elegy?
     
                            We live between eroding raindrops

                           and accelerating clocks. The piano

                           lifts its lid to show its wire-and-hammer

                           heart.
     

    About Lurch

    “[McKay’s] exuberantly musical and shrewd poems are ecological in the fullest sense of the word: they seek to elucidate our relationships with our fragile dwelling places both on the earth and in our own skins.” —New York Times Book Review

    An extraordinary collection of poems from Griffin Poetry Prize winner Don McKay.


     
    Old joke: “What’s the difference between a lurch and a dance step?”
     
    “I don’t know.”
     
    “I didn’t think so. Let’s sit down.”
     
    These poems are what happens when you stay out on the dance floor instead, dancing the staggers. The full moon rises from the ocean and you lurch with astonishment that we live on a rocky sphere whirling in space. Or the bird in your hand—a pipit or a storm petrel—conveys the exquisite frailty of existence. And there’s the complex of lurches as we contemplate our complicity in the sixth mass extinction.
     
    Throughout Lurch, language dances its ardent incompetence as a translator of “the profane wonders of the wilderness,” whether manifest as Balsam Fir, Catbirds, the extinct Eskimo Curlew, or the ever-present Cosmic Microwave Background.
     
    What is the difference between a love song and an elegy?
     
                            We live between eroding raindrops

                           and accelerating clocks. The piano

                           lifts its lid to show its wire-and-hammer

                           heart.
     

    Read An Excerpt

    Read An Excerpt

    Also by Don McKay

    Sanding Down This Rocking Chair on a Windy Night
    Birding, or Desire
    Another Gravity
    Apparatus
    Paradoxides
    See all books by Don McKay

    Also by Don McKay

    Sanding Down This Rocking Chair on a Windy Night
    Birding, or Desire
    Another Gravity
    Apparatus
    Paradoxides
    See all books by Don McKay

    About Don McKay

    Don McKay is the multi-award-winning author of thirteen previous books of poetry, including Paradoxides; Strike/Slip, winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize; and Camber: Selected Poems, a finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize and a Globe and Mail Notable Book of the… More about Don McKay

    About Don McKay

    Don McKay is the multi-award-winning author of thirteen previous books of poetry, including Paradoxides; Strike/Slip, winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize; and Camber: Selected Poems, a finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize and a Globe and Mail Notable Book of the… More about Don McKay

    Product Details

    Category: Poetry

    Paperback | $16.95
    Published by McClelland & Stewart
    Aug 03, 2021 | 96 Pages | 5-1/2 x 8-1/4 | ISBN 9780771057854

    Category: Poetry

    Ebook | $12.99
    Published by McClelland & Stewart
    Aug 03, 2021 | 96 Pages | ISBN 9780771057861

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    Praise

    Praise for Don McKay:

    “Don McKay walks us out to the uncertain ground between the known and unknown, between the names we have given things and things as they are. . . . McKay’s meditations on time’s evidence acquire a similar heft, proposing, in their discipline of mind and generosity of spirit, a way to be at home in the world. A book of patience, courage, and quiet eloquence.” –Judges’ Citation, 2007 Griffin Poetry Prize (Winner)

    “He is an essential poet of our time.” –Judges’ Citation, 2005 Griffin Poetry Prize

    “Don McKay is one of the very best Canadian poets. . . . He is a poet of a unique nature, a poet with a great capacity for beauty and grace.” —Northern Poetry Review

    “Reading McKay is a heightened and altering experience; it changes my personal relationship with language and silence.” —Toronto Star

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