Praise for Shane Rhodes’s previous work:Shane Rhodes is a national treasure
─ Leah Rae, GeistRhodes’s facility with language injects resonance directly into the veins to shock and then soothe: the storm and the calm.
─ Jacqueline Turner, The Georgia StraightThe Bindery is Rhodes’ third book and builds on the considerable accomplishments of his earlier works … Part travelogue, part genealogy, part guide to Latin-American commerce, part cabinet of wonder … Rhodes explores the resonances and dissonances of cultural, physical, and emotional rhyme. This is a book worth taking along on any trip.
─ Adam Dickinson, Canadian LiteratureRhodes’s third collection,
The Bindery, encompasses a distinct blend of lyrical, narrative and quasi-experimental styles, taking us through Latin America and Mexico, to India, Argentina and even through the Canadian Rockies. Emotionally, Rhodes takes us much farther …
The Bindery is a gorgeous collection of poetry with a clear disregard for form; these poems are as distinct as the cultures and places from which they draw their inspiration.
─ Thomas Trofimuk, Alberta Views– Praise for Rhodes’s previous workMining this relentlessly inventive collection of lyrics, I discovered what Rhodes could really do with language. In Us the speaker’s homoerotic experience is breathless … [t]his is the cryptic Rhodes, condensing landscapes of human experience into single phonemes. And then there is the meditative Rhodes, contemplating, in Fixed, the moment of his Ukrainian uncle’s death … Always in Rhodes, Self and human experience must become the substance of language itself, unERRingly.–Allen Bently, The Telegraph-Journal
Rhodes demonstrates his expert use of language in The Cloud Chamber, the book’s third chapter. In seeking out specific sounds within language, the poet creates works that are not only a joy to hear, but also a joy to read. … [Err] is a genuinely entertaining piece of literature–a book to make you laugh, cry, and perhaps order another round.–Danika J. Grenier, The Wig
[Shane Rhodes’s] latest book, Err, is his conscious quest to explore the underpinnings of what he practises as an art form. … For example, for some poems Rhodes reverses the traditional method of composing–adding piece onto piece–and explores a different and fascinatingly startling method. –Jeremy Mesiano-Crookston, Ottawa XPress
Life’s vices can combine into one volatile cocktail. Err is a collection of poetry from Shane Rhodes, as he talks on the dark underbelly of life and what we’re searching for when we’re under there. Pulling no punches and speaking on every subject he can think of, Err is a riveting work that values entertainment alongside its message.–Small Press Bookwatch (Wisconsin)
From his earlier trade collections … the tight lyric lines of Rhodes’ poems have become more acrobatic, tumbling lines that reveal a healthy looseness to his language, and phrases turning far faster than he ever had before. … [T]he playfulness of the entire collection abounds, madly off in all directions … yet Rhodes seems at his cartwheeling best when all that energy is contained, somewhat, and directed in shorter, smaller bursts, such as in the eight-part poem “Shooters.”
—rob mclennan’s blogErr is … highly entertaining, a smorgasbord of not-so-casual language games twisted into sharp poems both inviting & provocative.
–Douglas Barbour, Eclectic RuckusErr is a talented, drunken kiss from a silver tongue. It lingers … as a brilliant, but sometimes bitter, taste in the mouth. –Sonnet L’Abbe, The Globe and Mail
If you appreciate when poets twist and stretch language to see how far it can go, then Rhodes’s Err is for you.–Ian LeTourneau, The Malahat Review