Self-Defence for the Brave and Happy

It is the Third Millennium. The 20th century is a memory. Humans no longer walk on the moon. Passenger planes no longer fly at supersonic speeds. Disinformation overwhelms the legitimate news. The signs of our civilization’s demise are all around us, but hope is not lost. In these poems, you will find a map through our dystopia and protection from all manner of monsters, both natural and human made. Only the products of our imaginations — buildings and movies, daydreams and wondrous machines — can show us how to transform our lives. Self-Defence for the Brave and Happy is a survival guide for the Dark Age that lies ahead.

AUTHOR

Paul Vermeersch

Paul Vermeersch is a poet, professor, artist, and editor. The author of five previous collections of poetry, including The Reinvention of the Human Hand, a finalist for the Trillium Book Award, and Don’t Let It End Like This Tell Them I Said Something, he teaches in the Creative Writing & Publishing program at Sheridan College and is senior editor at Wolsak and Wynn Publishers where he runs the Buckrider Books imprint. He lives in Toronto.

Reviews

“Replete with deep thinking and reflection, revealing the poet’s wide-ranging intellect, eclectic mind, and penchant for sharp satire.” — Publishers Weekly

“Pataphysics meets pulp in Paul Vermeersch’s sixth collection . . . Gone is the flat-footed earnestness which sometimes troubled Vermeersch’s earlier work, replaced with a canny pop acceleration equal to the obdurate cargo of politics.” — Quill & Quire

“Beautiful . . . Part inspirational tract (borne of a deliciously playful inspiration, not the usual kind), part prophetic revelation, and all crafted with Vermeersch’s signature elan, Self-Defence for the Brave and Happy is a generous chocolate box stuffed with bon(-bon) mots, the perfect gift for your inner visionary. Shine on, you crazy zircon.” — This Magazine

“Wit is Vermeersch’s stylistic signature, and it is present at full power in this collection.” — The Coil Magazine

“Paul Vermeersch’s Self-Defence for the Brave and Happy is in turns wry, funny, horrifying and incisive . . . It both delights during a quick read and rewards careful re-reading, and I highly recommend it . . . Self-Defence for the Brave and Happy is perceptive, carefully-crafted, melancholy and funny. The simultaneously critical and wryly amused attitude of the collection is perhaps the only self-defence that we have against time and the monsters of our own creation.” — The /t?mz/ Review