The Poet is a Radio is about the great Chinese poet Li Bai (we used to know him as Li Po), who has journeyed across the world and across the centuries to find himself celebrating his birthday in a dreamlike version of contemporary Montreal.
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Title:The Poet is a Radio (Linda Leith Publishing, 2016)Author:Jack Hannan is the author of three books of poetry, including Some Frames, which was shortlisted for the QWF A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry in 2011. He has worked for many years in the world of books, both as a bookseller and in publishing. He lives with his family in Montreal, where he works for McGill-Queen’s University Press.Why you need to read this now:The Poet is a Radio is about the great Chinese poet Li Bai (we used to know him as Li Po), who has journeyed across the world and across the centuries to find himself celebrating his birthday in a dreamlike version of contemporary Montreal.Li Bai is far from the only poet in The Poet is a Radio. He’s been in Montreal about a year, working for Kenneth Patchen at Books for A Deserted Island, which is located in a shopping mall and is doing poorly.A young poet, Dwayne, writes a sonnet for his girlfriend, Habana de Curra, and when a boy writes a sonnet to a girl, a bell rings, and all the old poets stop what they’re doing to have a look. The Homer crowd is not that interested, but the rest think it’s a marvelous thing. “Another one,” Bill Olson calls out to Bill Williams. John Milton and William Blake are over on the other side, but Blake comes over quickly.It isn’t all poets and books. Habana works beside Li Bai in the bookshop, and he gives her lessons in a form of martial arts based on taiji quan. Then he comes across a bag of money in a downtown parking lot, and we soon meet the delinquent who lost the bag of money in the first place—and live through the excitement of a kidnapping and discover what Li Bai does with the loot.What makes the novel work is its understatement, its quirky surprises, its lively interest in language—and in languages. Its unassuming charm, too. The Poet is a Radio is a first novel, and it’s a novel that could only have been written by a poet, but it’s also a novel that only a master could pull off.“It’s easy to forget that an oblivious person with his nose in a book is the point of the whole thing,” Hannan writes. He’s right, and this is not just a good line, for we do sometimes forget the point of the whole thing. Hannan is here to remind us. The best way of reminding ourselves of that is to become an oblivious person with our nose in The Poet is a Radio.* * *Thank you to Linda Leith for sharing this interesting new novel with us, especially during National Poetry Month!
