Collected Poems of Alden Nowlan

Edited by: Brian Bartlett

Alden Nowlan (1933-1983) once wrote of a desire to leave behind “one poem, one story / that will tell what it was like / to be alive.” In an abundance of memorable poems, he fulfilled this desire with candour and subtlety, emotion, and humour, sympathy and truth-telling. For many years, Nowlan has been one of Canada’s most-read and -beloved poets, but only now is the true range of his poetic achievement finally available between two covers, with the publication of Collected Poems of Alden Nowlan.

Nowlan takes us from nightmarish precincts of fear and solitude to the embrace of friendship and family. Delving into experiences of violence and gentleness, of alienation and love, his poetry reveals our shared humanity as well as our perplexing and sometimes entertaining differences. Nowlan’s childhood and adult years are colourfully reflected in his poetry. These autobiographical threads are interwoven with fantasies, an astute historical consciousness, and a keen awareness of the shiftings and transformations of selfhood.

Nowlan wrote with formal variety, visually shaping his poems with a dexterity that complicates impressions that he was primarily a “plainspoken” poet. His varied uses of the poetic line — his handling of line-lengths and -breaks, stanzas, and pauses — show him to be a writer who skilfully uses the page to suggest and embody the rhythms of speech. This long-awaited volume enables readers to experience his poetic genius in its fullness and uniqueness.

AUTHOR

Brian Bartlett

Brian Bartlett has published many collections and chapbooks of poetry, including The Watchmaker?s Table, The Afterlife of Trees, Granite Erratics, and Wanting the Day: Selected Poems, along with one prose book, Ringing Here & There: A Nature Calendar, with another forthcoming in 2017. He resides in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Reviews

Alden Nowlan once wrote of a desire to leave behind “one poem, one story / that will tell what it was like / to be alive.” In an abundance of memorable poems, he fulfuilled this desire, with cancour and subtlety, emotion and humour, sympathy and truth-telling.

HIs range is remarkable. Nowlan’s poems take us from nightmarish precincts of fear and solitude to the embrace of friendship and family. The visual shaping of his poems, his handling of line-lengths, stanzas, and pauses demonstrate an uncanny skill in suggesting and embodying the rhythms of speech.

Delving into experiences of violence and gentleness, of alienation and love, his poetry reveals our shared humanity as well as our perplexing and sometimes entertaining differences. The autobiographical threads are interwoven with fantasies, an astute historical consciousness, and a keen awareness of the shiftings and transformations of selfhood.

He has long been one of Canada’s most-read and -beloved poets. Now the true range of his poetic genius is available in a single volume.


“Both the Ukraine and Russia lay claim to Gogol, Wales has Dylan Thomas, and America, Poe. We (in Atlantica) have Alden Nowlan. He might tell you you’ve got the balls of a bull moose to say something like that. Just think how hard as a youngster he was treated by his native place. That doesn’t matter now, since he turned it all to gold. Nowlan reminds us our English is good. Our cold winter-tempered Irish English, modern, spare, and mythological. These poems are enough to make you want to put your guitar down.”
“The publication of this book is an historic event in our literature. The collection is a life’s work, and like the work of life, this writing wrestles with ancient forces that are pure and unchanging. Nobody else saw the world with Alden’s kind of clarity and nobody else worked the language so hard — trying to make it hold, or embrace, our shared experience with such furious tenderness. If you still think honesty is possible, if you worry sometimes about truth and the struggle for sincere connection, Collected Poems of Alden Nowlan will give you comfort.”
“Well over thirty years after his death, Alden Nowlan’s poems are still hot-blooded — living, breathing incantations that beat with the pulse of Eastern Canada. Imbued with what Brian Bartlett dubs “the illusion of speech,” Collected Poems of Alden Nowlan brings together the work of a master craftsman, a writer whose rangy, conversational poems benefit from appearing where they emerged within his career arc. A definitive volume that consolidates Nowlan’s standing in Canadian letters.”
“After I was brought up on the Romantics in school, my love of Alden Nowlan’s poetry began with his dense, metrically perfect lyrics, some of them so dark they made me shiver. Later, his plain-speaking voice, his honesty and vulnerability drew me in. My husband and I hold Alden in such high regard that shortly after his death we named our first cat after him. He is our laureate of human frailties. No one makes me feel less alone in life and in literature than Alden.”
“Nowlan’s work still lives, more than two decades after his death, and reminds people…how much he contributed to Canadian literature.”
National Post

“The bard of Atlantic Canada, Alden Nowlan created poetry that found beauty in quotidian moments and colloquial speech. [This collection] serves as a fitting tribute to the poet’s legacy.”
Quill & Quire

“The Collected Poems of Alden Nowlan may be the most important book of poetry published in Canada this year.”
Today’s Book of Poetry

“On almost every page there is a reminder of the laconic poet’s gift for defining small beauties of, and rueful observations about, the vast chaotic canvas of our reality. Some poems are guileless in their hardy, plain simplicity while others have such tangled emotions they remind you how great poets observe.”
The Globe and Mail

“Nowlan, the most important twentieth century poet from the Maritimes, emerged from an early life of crushing rural poverty to publish some of the best work Canada has ever seen.”
Poetry magazine

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Alden Nowlan (1933-1983) once wrote of a desire to leave behind “one poem, one story / that will tell what it was like / to be alive.” In an abundance of memorable poems, he fulfilled this desire with candour and subtlety, emotion, and humour, sympathy and truth-telling. For many years, Nowlan has been one of Canada’s most-read and -beloved poets, but only now is the true range of his poetic achievement finally available between two covers, with the publication of Collected Poems of Alden Nowlan.

Nowlan takes us from nightmarish precincts of fear and solitude to the embrace of friendship and family. Delving into experiences of violence and gentleness, of alienation and love, his poetry reveals our shared humanity as well as our perplexing and sometimes entertaining differences. Nowlan’s childhood and adult years are colourfully reflected in his poetry. These autobiographical threads are interwoven with fantasies, an astute historical consciousness, and a keen awareness of the shiftings and transformations of selfhood.

Nowlan wrote with formal variety, visually shaping his poems with a dexterity that complicates impressions that he was primarily a “plainspoken” poet. His varied uses of the poetic line — his handling of line-lengths and -breaks, stanzas, and pauses — show him to be a writer who skilfully uses the page to suggest and embody the rhythms of speech. This long-awaited volume enables readers to experience his poetic genius in its fullness and uniqueness.

Reader Reviews

Details

Dimensions:

688 Pages

1360gr2in6in * 9in

Published:

September 26, 2017

Publisher:

Goose Lane Editions

ISBN:

9780864929600

9780864929495 – MobiPocket

9780864929488 – EPUB

Book Subjects:

POETRY / Canadian

Language:

01

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