South of North: Images of Canada

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The Porcupine's Quill, 2007 - Poetry - 119 pages

Richard Outram has long been accused (there are those who will protest, wrongly accused) of being a `difficult' poet. An ascetic traditionalist perhaps, as opposed to a populist the likes of cigar-smoking Al Purdy or whiskey-ravaged Milton Acorn. Some, notably the formidable critic Peter Sanger, prefer the term `challenging' in describing Outram's poetry. Alberto Manguel has written that Richard Outram is `one of the finest poets in the English language'. But then there are those fervent, vocal dissidents who will insist that not only is the thicker of Outram's poetry `impenetrable', but also that Sanger's criticism is equally incomprehensible, if not more so. South of North presents a very different side of the polarizing Richard Outram. Consider ...

`Outram's ``perfect burden'' is the necessity of human ignorance and confusion, the burden of the ``sad man'' in ``Autumn'' which, like the riddle-work of material lattice both intercepting and allowing the passage of light in The Promise of Light, is the only possible preliminary to an accurate and profound experience of love.' -- Peter Sanger, `Her kindled shadow, ' An Introduction to the Work of Richard Outram

In South of North, by way of stark contrast, Outram's azure mariner compares the `waves of Whiffinspit' with the `waves of Pond Inlet' and finds the waters to be remarkably similar. As might be expected; nothing more complicated than that. South of North depicts a landscape that is distinctly rural -- a weathervane, dogwood in a marsh, and raucous crows; the whitened skeleton of a vole in a fallow field. Tantramar Marsh, the Saugeen River and the horses of Bonavista. A summer storm building over Cobourg; the hefty bulk of a snapping turtle surfacing, trailing a rank ooze.

 

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Contents

Section 1
8
Section 2
9
Section 3
19
Section 4
77
Section 5
80
Section 6
103
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About the author (2007)

Outram was born in Canada in 1930. He was a graduate of the University of Toronto (English and Philosophy), and worked for many years at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a stagehand crew leader. He wrote more than twenty books, four of these published by the Porcupine's Quill (Man in Love [1985, Hiram and Jenny [1988, Mogul Recollected [1993, and Dove Legend [2001). He won the City of Toronto Book Award in 1999 for his collection Benedict Abroad (St Thoreau MacDonald (1901-1989) was born in Toronto, Ontario. His formative years were spent in rural areas near High Park, and in Thornhill, north of Toronto. Thoreau's drawings and writings about the wild plants and animals native to these regions reflect his deep concern for and support of nature conservation. Thoreau created thousands of images including pencil sketches, pen and brush drawings, stencils, linocuts, woodcuts, silkscreens, watercolours and oils. He is perhaps best remembe

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