The Gamekeeper: Selected Poems 1976 - 2011

Front Cover
The Porcupine's Quill, Oct 18, 2017 - Poetry - 160 pages

In The Gamekeeper, Michael Harris presents poems of sorrow, sensuality, quirkiness and humour—a grand variety of takes on the mortal landscape.

With sharp wit and unaffected music, Harris handles the human and natural worlds with equal sensitivity. Of an apple tree, for instance, he says, "and the apple tree’s victory stays / stiff-necked, full of thrash / in its iron-bare head of black antler." Considering Emily Dickinson in a poem entitled "Death," we are drawn into the protagonist’s world with "Weathered billet-doux hang pinned / in the sheen of black crepe // that encloses her looking-glass / like a wreath of wet seaweed."

The Gamekeeper contains a selection of poetry spanning five collections and over four decades, revealing the full range of one of the finest poets of his generation.

 

Selected pages

Contents

The Human Element
13
Birthday in Late November
14
The Patient
15
A Woman Washing Clothes Sees a Heron
16
The Sparks
17
Grace 1977
19
The Gamekeeper
21
October at the Farm
24
The Dolphin
88
The Road of the Dead
89
New and Selected Poems 1992
91
Spring Descending
93
The Goddess
104
Siren Songs
105
Epithalamion
106
The Sun Rises
108

The Woods
25
Barn Swallow
26
The Ice Castle
27
28
28
Shad+y
29
Frogs Courting
30
The Lepidopterists Letter
31
Uncle Edward
32
Deacon Moth
33
Rabbit
34
The HuntingCabin in November
35
Death Miss Emily
36
In Transit 1985
53
Turning Out the Light
55
The LightHouse Keeper
75
Falling Back
76
The View from the Kitchen
78
An Octopus
80
Goats Agios Nikolaos
81
The Nude Beach Paros
82
The Watchmender Paros
83
From the Hotel Calypso Corfu
84
Constitution Square Kerkira Corfu
85
By the GreenFig Tree
86
His Daughter
87
A Visit to the Galleries
109
Killing the Beast
116
Family Album
120
The Music of the Caterpillar
122
The Steward
123
The Saints
124
The Siesta of the Mediterranean Man in America
125
A Specialty Shop
126
Janus
127
June
128
Circus 2011
129
The Bearded Lady
131
Weary Willy
132
The Cupboard Is Bare
133
Speech
134
Hoodiddit
135
At the Library
139
On Beheading
141
Molivos
142
From the Diary of the Sailors Wife
147
Ringmaster
148
Hang in There
149
The House of Horrors
150
Copyright

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The Gamekeeper: Selected Poems 1976 - 2011
Michael Harris
Limited preview - 2017

Common terms and phrases

apples beach beast belly blood blue blueberries bobolink body breath bright burst can’t clock colours cool Corfu dark dead Death death watches desk like shipwrecked di}erent dreams drip elds Elspeth Morrison Emily’s ercely evanescent eyes face fall feels gamekeeper’s gone gather girl’s green grey hair hangs head hold Hoodiddit hummingbirds I’ve keep kiss kitchen light look Looking-Pool love love love mails me hearts Mancunian Mancunium maniple Mephisto Miss Emily mist Molivos moon mouth nally neat ngers o}ered oating owers Paros pink Post-it notes pulling quiet quietly Ray Liotta ringmaster rises Rodin’s says shadows shipwrecked boats shivering silence skin sleep slow slowly snow soft song spring stone stop sunlight thin things tongue trees Troon turn walk watches whisper white-throated sparrow who’s wind window wings winter Year’s

About the author (2017)

Born in Glasgow Scotland and raised in Montreal, Michael Harris has enjoyed a varied career as an author, editor and educator. He has taught English and Creative Writing at McGill, Concordia, and Dawson College, and spent twenty years as poetry editor of the Véhicule Press imprint Signal Editions. He is the author of several well-regarded poetry collections, including Circus (2010), which was nominated for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry. His works of poetry and prose have been published in leading journals and magazines across North America. Harris’s most recent book is Field Notes: Prose Pieces 1969 - 2012 (2013). He lives in Montreal, Quebec.

Bibliographic information

TitleThe Gamekeeper: Selected Poems 1976 - 2011
AuthorMichael Harris
PublisherThe Porcupine's Quill, 2017
ISBN0889844070, 9780889844070
Length160 pages
Subjects › 

Poetry / Canadian
Poetry / General
  
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