A Lover's Quarrel: Essays and Reviews

Already an award-winning poet, Carmine Starnino has also made his mark as a literary critic of great pluck, probity and irreverence. His highly regarded, often highly controversial writings on poetry have enlivened -- and often enraged -- the Canadian literary scene since they first began appearing in the late 1990s. He has tackled the careers of some of this country's most notable poets (among them Irving Layton, Michael Ondaatje, Anne Carson, Tim Lilburn, Susan Musgrave, Christopher Dewdney) and done so in prose of great subtlety and style. Indeed, in Starnino's literary criticism seditiousness and insight are made to live inside sentences that always square their shoulders and draw themselves to their full verbal height. A Lover's Quarrel culls some of the highlights of Starnino's dissenting exploits, and includes the never-before-published title essay, an ambitious reassessment of Canadian poetry. For readers unfamiliar with Starnino's criticism, the release of A Lover's Quarrel furnishes the perfect opportunity to read one of the few critics in Canada who can speak his mind and speak it well.