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Cruise Control
Cruise Control knows no borders, hurtling down BC’s Coquihalla Highway, sightseeing in Regina, tearing through Windsor, “plunging beneath the Earth” in Chicago, visiting some eccentric characters in Germany and even exploring the “non-presence (i.e. lostness)” of Atlantis.Ken Howe’s reckless intellect and insatiable curiosity for everything — Canadian geography, architecture, the experimental writing of Gertrude Stein, the “urban imperialist agenda” and even the “bright checkered tablecloth in Grandmother’s Pizza three A.M.” — flood off the page and drag us into an infinite current that unites all these concepts and objects and entices (or renews) our own understanding and interest in each with vitality and humour.
Look out: here is a revved Ken Howe, erudite at 200 kph, funny, liturgical, elegiac. Enjoy the unparalled ride. –Tim Lilburn
Ken Howe seems a genius at this genus, a di-jester of congestion and conjectural compression … Cross Christopher Dewdney’s cenozoic perambulations with an architectural blueprint of a Gothic cathedral, and you get something that coughs like symphonic botany. Except it is in a car on the Trans-Canada Highway driving eastbound from Regina for three days, with a lonely, loony pilot imagining the pit stops as a gasoline-scented stations of the cross. Kerouac is a back-seat haint in Howe’s car-as-confessional … You get so mesmerized on the road with Howe that when he finally pulls up 72 hours later to a motel in Dundas, Ont., you swoon out of the car, dizzy at the oxygen and wondering, with him, “whether, climbing the steps, the fixity/ of this dwelling would suffice/ to quell the ongoing motion.” This second collection from Howe will cruise any lucky reader home, or somewhere, busting through hypostatic spider webs, mosquitoes be damned. –Margaret Christakos, Globe and Mail
Howe’s poems mostly take on the form of pseudo-scientific glosses on various aspects of modern life, including cars, mass culture and alienating architecture. They have a solemn tone, but are played for laughs … there’s no question that he’s smart, funny and eclectic. Read him when you’ve got the mental energy — and patience — to keep up. –Barbara Carey, Toronto Star
Praise for Howe’s previous work:
In his first collection of poetry, Household Hints for the End of Time, Regina poet Ken Howe explores a wide range of subjects — from the inherent meaning of a refrigerator to the resonances and implications of love and music … Howe’s poetry sparkles. These playfully descriptive vignettes about “ordinary” subjects are reminiscent of the weird imaginings of Douglas Adams and the tongue-in-cheek language of Gertrude Stein … the overall playfulness and sophisticated sense of rhythm, timing, and phrasing make the collection a strong first showing.
–Heather Fitzgerald, Quill and Quire
Over and over in this manuscript, the ordinary (snow and Stanfield’s [underwear]) is alchemized into poetry.
–Sue Goyette
– Praise for Howe’s previous work
Ken Howe seems a genius at this genus, a di-jester of congestion and conjectural compression … Cross Christopher Dewdney’s cenozoic perambulations with an architectural blueprint of a Gothic cathedral, and you get something that coughs like symphonic botany. Except it is in a car on the Trans-Canada Highway driving eastbound from Regina for three days, with a lonely, loony pilot imagining the pit stops as a gasoline-scented stations of the cross. Kerouac is a back-seat haint in Howe’s car-as-confessional … You get so mesmerized on the road with Howe that when he finally pulls up 72 hours later to a motel in Dundas, Ont., you swoon out of the car, dizzy at the oxygen and wondering, with him, “whether, climbing the steps, the fixity/ of this dwelling would suffice/ to quell the ongoing motion.” This second collection from Howe will cruise any lucky reader home, or somewhere, busting through hypostatic spider webs, mosquitoes be damned. –Margaret Christakos, Globe and Mail
Howe’s poems mostly take on the form of pseudo-scientific glosses on various aspects of modern life, including cars, mass culture and alienating architecture. They have a solemn tone, but are played for laughs … there’s no question that he’s smart, funny and eclectic. Read him when you’ve got the mental energy — and patience — to keep up. –Barbara Carey, Toronto Star
Praise for Howe’s previous work:
In his first collection of poetry, Household Hints for the End of Time, Regina poet Ken Howe explores a wide range of subjects — from the inherent meaning of a refrigerator to the resonances and implications of love and music … Howe’s poetry sparkles. These playfully descriptive vignettes about “ordinary” subjects are reminiscent of the weird imaginings of Douglas Adams and the tongue-in-cheek language of Gertrude Stein … the overall playfulness and sophisticated sense of rhythm, timing, and phrasing make the collection a strong first showing.
–Heather Fitzgerald, Quill and Quire
Over and over in this manuscript, the ordinary (snow and Stanfield’s [underwear]) is alchemized into poetry.
–Sue Goyette
– Praise for Howe’s previous work
There are no awards found for this book.
Details
Dimensions:
128 Pages
7.5in * 5.25in * 0.4in
0.45lb
Published:
September 05, 2002
Publisher:
ISBN:
9780889711860
Featured In:
Language:
eng
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