sewn paper
e-mail the Author
Poetry
November 1999
108 pages
ISBN 0-88984-210-8
$12.95
Crossing the Salt Flats
Christopher WisemanCrossing the Salt Flats is Christopher Wiseman's eighth book of
poetry. Earlier volumes such as Postcards Home and Remembering
Mr. Fox won him awards and spreading recognition. The poems in Crossing
the Salt Flats expand on his visual themes -- memories of childhood
laced with vivid detail, journeys, the historical past recreated and imagined.
Christopher Wiseman's poetry moves widely across time and place, searching
out delight, horror, sadness, joy, love and loss. In these wonderfully
crafted poems we meet a fine array of characters ranging from a disgruntled
18th-century Duchess, the inhabitants of a strange Scottish village, a
victim of the Dunblane massacre, a sad saxophone player, even the author
as a young child.
This new collection clearly demonstrates Christopher Wiseman's range
and command of form and tone, and reinforces his reputation for accessibility,
deep feeling, honesty and compassion. He knows exactly what he is about,
and Crossing the Salt Flats is mature and powerful work which puts
him squarely among Canada's finest poets.
`Christopher Wiseman invariably writes poems about basic human
experiences, and in this collection, one of his finest, he is especially
concerned with his family and ancestors. He emigrated from England
as a young man, and his wife has relatives in the United States, so many
of these poems involve travel -- but travel to one's human origins. Because
the emphasis is on emotions we all share, however, the poems are never obviously
or embarrassingly private; on the contrary, they are readily accessible and make an
immediate impact -- though their subtleties may not reveal themselves until they have
been reread and fully absorbed.' `Christopher Wiseman is a conscientious craftsman and in
Crossing the Salt Flats shows himself remarkably adept at handling a variety
of traditional forms: rondel, villanelle, sonnet. These formally structured
poems are Wiseman's best.' `Christopher Wiseman in a splendidly unhurried poem which pays
three years-separated visits
to a famous north of England velodrome (the poem unfolds like a Van
Eyck triptych, each scene
as time-drenched and luminous as the others), writes of ``heavy memory
come alive''. Crossing
the Salt Flats allows us into the rooms and years and richly-laden
memories of this distinguished Canadian poet,
and if it's not yet the crown of a long and continuing career, it's
a jewel.'
- W.J. Keith, Canadian Book Review Annual
- Kenneth Sherman, Globe and Mail
- Don Coles
His poetry has won two Province of Alberta Poetry Awards, the Poetry
Prize from the Writers Guild of Alberta, and an Alberta Achievement Award
for Excellence in the literary Arts. He has served on the Board of the
Alberta Foundation for the Literary Arts, as President
of the Writers Guild of Alberta, and as editor and poetry editor of
both ARIEL and Dandelion.