Year Zero

Year Zero is the time of hushed beginnings and endings, the place of naming and unnaming, where language, strange to itself, tiptoes along songlines as though following passages of Koto music. In Brian Henderson’s poetry, poised and listening on this hinge of creativity, ontological wonder is informed by awareness of the paradoxes at the heart of language, that language wants you for itself, and that what is named, falls. Whether focusing on the dying of a parent or fellow poet, or on the coming-to-be of a child, this poetry is alive with the truth that “The dead burn through us/ the not yet born.”

“What a wonderful book this is! Henderson tells the old story how dear ones die, and new lives come to be. In a world that’s dense, opaque, yet lit with random hints of something being uttered. The result is a marvel of passionate, glancing eloquence. I wanted it never to end.” –Dennis Lee

AUTHOR

Brian Henderson

Brian Henderson is the author of eight collections of poetry (including a deck of visual poem-cards). His work has appeared in a number of small magazines. In the 70s he was a founding editor of RUNE. He has a PhD in Canadian literature, has worked as a university instructor, a phone jack installer, a traffic counter, a shipper/receiver and a rock drummer. He’s been employed in educational publishing for most of his career but is now the director of Wilfrid Laurier University Press. He has two children by a previous relationship and lives with the love of his life in Kitchener, Ontario.