Nine years in the making, award-winning poet Kevin Connolly’s new collection extends its author’s investigation of identity, authority, intention, and authenticity.
What is public poetry? In an age of tweets and trolls, what should it even try to be? Through revision, redaction, ventriloquism, homage, self-sabotage, and outright plunder, the poems in Connolly’s Xiphoid Process interrogate the alleged futility and alleged insight of mid-life. Are we who we are simply because we’d otherwise be nothing? Or are we (more hopefully) something parked, for a time, in time, trying to make something useful out of the experience? Walt Whitman, Tom Petty, Alec Baldwin, Doug Stanhope, Journey, Judd Nelson, Billy Ripken, Johnny Weissmuller, Don Felder, Lindsay Lohan, Shiprock, NM, the police blotter at Point Reyes Station, California, and the moons of Saturn are all poised to make their case in the poet’s latest deliberations.
Nine years in the making, award-winning poet Kevin Connolly’s new collection extends its author’s investigation of identity, authority, intention, and authenticity.
What is public poetry? In an age of tweets and trolls, what should it even try to be? Through revision, redaction, ventriloquism, homage, self-sabotage, and outright plunder, the poems in Connolly’s Xiphoid Process interrogate the alleged futility and alleged insight of mid-life. Are we who we are simply because we’d otherwise be nothing? Or are we (more hopefully) something parked, for a time, in time, trying to make something useful out of the experience? Walt Whitman, Tom Petty, Alec Baldwin, Doug Stanhope, Journey, Judd Nelson, Billy Ripken, Johnny Weissmuller, Don Felder, Lindsay Lohan, Shiprock, NM, the police blotter at Point Reyes Station, California, and the moons of Saturn are all poised to make their case in the poet’s latest deliberations.
| Published By | House of Anansi Press Inc — Apr 8, 2017 |
| Specifications | 88 pages | 5.5 in x 8.5 in |
| Keywords | award winning poet; revolver; drift; contemporary poetry; canadian poetry; modernity; twitter; introspective; canlit; poems; the road in is not the same road out; karen solie; return to the city of white donkeys; james tate; methodist hatchet; ken babstock; poetry collector; gift book; |
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Excerpt |
| Written By | Kevin Connolly is a poet, journalist, and editor. He lives in Toronto's east end with his partner, writer Gil Adamson. |
| Written By |
| Kevin Connolly is a poet, journalist, and editor. He lives in Toronto's east end with his partner, writer Gil Adamson. |
“a heterodox collection that defies conventional expectations” —Quill and Quire
“Connolly is known for his satirical wit, and some of the poems here fit that mould. But they are buttressed by poems in a more pensive, lyrical vein. These offer deep thought rather than easy laughs, and they are the backbone ... of Xiphoid Process.” —The Toronto Star
“Connolly's poetic flights are short, beautiful and speak back to the darkness” —The Globe and Mail