Alden Nowlan Selected Poems

Alden Nowlan

• Publisher: A List
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781770893764
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Canadian Poetry
• Index: Literature

The best of beloved poet Alden Nowlan's explicitly honest, direct, and insightful poetry. Now featuring an introduction by Susan Musgrave.

Alden Nowlan, one of Canada's finest and most influential poets, died in 1983. He leaves a rich legacy of poetry that is accessible yet profound, and that speaks to people's lives with wry observation and keen insight. Alden Nowlan Selected Poems is for Nowlan fans and new readers alike. The poems included in this volume reflect the recurring themes that illuminate Nowlan's work, and it is truly the best of his poetry. Above all, this volume is a tribute to a poet who deserves to be treasured for all time.

Table of contents

• Openers
• Introduction by Susan Musgrave
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Hens
• All Down the Morning
• Weakness
• In the Hainesville Cemetery
• After the First Frost
• I Knew the Seasons Ere I Knew the Hours
• Pussywillows in March
• God Sour the Milk of the Knacking Wench
• For Nicholas of All the Russias
• Beginning
• Aunt Jane
• The Belled Deer
• The Coat
• Father
• Baptism
• The Fynch Cows
• Warren Pryor
• Georgie and Fenwick
• Christ
• Looking for Nancy
• St. John River
• Party at Bannon Brook
• Disguise
• The Bull Moose
• The Shack Dwellers
• Stoney Ridge Dance Hall
• The Grove Beyond the Barley
• The Execution
• The Drunken Poet
• Daisies
• Canadian Love Song
• The Migrant Hand
• I, Icarus
• Long, Long Ago
• And He Wept Aloud, So That the Egyptians Heard It
• Daughter of Zion
• Britain Street
• For Jean Vincent D’Abbadie, Baron St.-Castin
• July 15
• A Mug’s Game
• The Word
• Day’s End
• The Last Waltz
• The Wickedness of Peter Shannon
• In the Operating Room
• Morning of the Third Operation
• The Mysterious Naked Man
• Hymn to Dionysus
• Country Full of Christmas
• Snapshot
• The Mosherville Road
• A Poem About Miracles
• Ypres: 1915
• A Black Plastic Button and a Yellow Yoyo
• The First Stirring of the Beasts
• An Exchange of Gifts
• Chance Encounter
• Why He Wanted to Abolish Capital Punishment
• Mistaken Identity
• Fair Warning
• The lconotrophic Instant
• Canadian January Night
• The Married Man’s Poem
• He Raids the Refrigerator and Reflects on Parenthood
• Johnnie’s Poem
• Cornflowers
• Written While Waiting for Another Chest X-Ray
• For Yukio Mishima
• Old Town Revisited
• They Go Off to Seek Their Fortunes
• For My Grandchildren, as Yet Unborn
• He Takes His leave
• At a Distance He Observes an Unknown Girl Picking Flowers
• The Palomino Stallion
• The Social Worker’s Poem
• The Old Gentleman
• Unfinished Poem
• Poem for Barbara and Lindsay’s Wedding
• A Pinch or Two of Dust
• The Rites of Manhood
• The Jelly Bean Man
• The Broadcaster’s Poem
• The Middle-Aged Man in the Supermarket
• Full Circle
• The Visitor
• On the Barrens
• Land and Sea
• The Red Wool Shirt
• What Colour Is Manitoba?
• It’s Good to Be Here
• My Beard, Once Lionheart Red
• What Happened When He Went to the Store for Bread
• A Pair of Pruning Shears
• The Seasick Sailor, and Others
• A Night in 1938, and the Night After
• There Is a Horrible Wing to the Hotel
• He Visits the Shrine of a Saint
• The Secretive Fishermen
• Legacy
• I’m Simply Walking
• He Reflects Upon His Own Stupidity
• Great Things Have Happened
• How Beautiful Art Thy Feet with Shoes
• The Thief
• Bobby Sands
• He Sits Down on the Floor of a School for the Retarded
• A Song to Be Whispered
• You Can’t Get There from Here
• Two Visitors from Utah
• 1914-1918
• Driving a Hard Bargain
• Home from the Wars
• He Attempts to Love His Neighbours
• The Fox
• My Father’s Body Was Found by Children
• This Is What I Wanted to Sign Off With
• The All Night Diner
• Confession
• The Fat Man’s Poem
• Contributors
• About the Publisher