Guernica Editions
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In the Garden of I Am
Guernica Editions, Spring 2015
82 pages
Trade Paperback
ISBN13: 9781550719543
ISBN10: 1550719548
English
$20.00 Canada, $20.00 US
Read more from the Essential Poets Series
Although every poem in this book begins with the same first three words, each is a world unto itself. The poems range in subject from the intensely personal to the profoundly philosophical. Some poems are funny, some deadly serious; some filled with whimsy, some with horror. Stylistically, some poems relish the challenge of metered rhyme while others delight in the loopy unpredictable music of free verse.
I am the I Am / Who am all things / And much else besides / And much else between
A genuine pleasure to read. My first kick came as I realised that every poem takes off from the same line. That's something I've never seen, and it set me thinking of jazz musicians who riff on a familiar tune. It's a muscular conception for a book, sly and satisfying. There's a sturdy intelligence at work here, a stubbornly independent cast of mind determined to test things on its own nerve-ends and come to its own conclusions …
Dennis Lee
Books by Max Layton
