Always Now: The Collected Poems, Vol. 2 [Paperback]

Margaret Avison (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 30, 2004

`These are poems steeped in the Bible, but always imbued with genuine emotion and insight into contemporary life and without a tinge of self-righteousness.'

(Bert Almon Canadian Book Review Annual )

Editorial Reviews

Review

`From the serene, leaf-fringed branch on its cover, Always Now may not seem like a book that provides a seismic shock to expectations. But the surprise of reading Margaret Avison's poetry is, in large part, predicated on the extent to which we have underestimated it. Awarding her poems with canonical respectability has allowed us to tune out everything that is disquieting about them.

`Today, those untapped revolutionary properties wait like the insides of a shaken bottle of bubbly. So while you may appreciate her as the doyenne of our poetic past, Margaret Avison, at the age of 96, represents nothing less than the future of Canadian poetry: a future sympathetic to originality and the quirks of the individual imagination; a future sympathetic to intellect and vocabulary's rich vocal palette.'

(Carmine Starnino Globe & Mail )

`Margaret Avison is the best poet we have had.... ``Searching and Sounding'' and the poem that rimes with it, ``The Dumbfounding,'' are not likely to be bettered by any work that any poet will ever publish.'

(Poet Laureate George Bowering )

`It is also hard to contest Avison's ability to find great poems while searching through the demands of everyday life. [...] Margaret Avison rules now -- and always.'

(James Reaney London Free Press )

`It is Avison's unique accomplishment to write, in and for a secular world, about faith and God, with intelligence and without becoming either sentimental or preachy. Her faith is foundational to her writing. In speaking about the forces that shaped her earlier writing, she relates how she resisted commitment to Christianity because she feared it would mean an end to writing poetry. As it turned out, ``new surges of vitality came with new Christian faith, and poetry lost its status as my first priority''.'

(Sarah Klassen Prairie Fire )

`Margaret Avison is a national treasure. For many decades she has forged a way to write, against the grain, some of the most humane, sweet and profound poetry of our time.'

(Griffin Prize Judges' Citation )

Review

`However long it may take for their work to gain recognition, Canadian poets seem to be doing land office business these days. The signs keep coming in over the wires. The Griffin Prize for Poetry, both more generous and more responsible than any comparable award in America, has started to generate real excitement. Avison's contemporary P.K. Page has just published an impressive selection of her poems. Then there are those, like Michael Ondatjee and Anne Carson, who are already widely read outside of Canada. You also have southern transplants, poets like Robert Bringhurst and A.F. Moritz, whose strong recent work deserves attention. But the best writing has never followed trends, and whatever momentum Canadian poetry may have right now, the real significance lies in the solitary pleasure of reading the verse itself. With her technical deftness, her ethical commitment, and her meditative intensity, Margaret Avison offers as deep a pleasure as any poet now writing. Recognition will surely gather around this work. But serious readers don't have to wait for the anthologists.'

(Peter Campion )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Porcupine's Quill (October 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0889842558
• ISBN-13: 978-0889842557
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,140,138 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)