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Apparatus
“There’s a place / between desire and memory, some back porch / we can neither wish for nor recall,” writes Don McKay in Apparatus. The poems in this collection home in on that place – those keenly desired places – where language will not reach. Apparatus is Don McKay’s first collection of new poems since his 1991 award-winning Night Field. It is a passionate engagement with nature and a powerful critique of human assaults on wilderness which, for McKay, is more than unsubdued nature; it is whatever eludes the mind’s categories – the insoluble secret of life itself. To read McKay’s poems is to be in touch with the significant concerns of our time and all time. McKay is a poet of unmatched linguistic playfulness, with virtuoso flexibility of voice and an ability to shape-shift through forms, tones, and styles.
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Paperback
First published April 5, 1997
15 people want to read
About the author
Don McKay
57 books24 followersDon McKay is an award-winning Canadian poet, editor, and educator.
McKay was educated at the University of Western Ontario and the University of Wales, where he earned his PhD in 1971. He taught creative writing and English for 27 years in universities including the University of Western Ontario and the University of New Brunswick.
In June 2007, he won the Griffin Poetry Prize for Strike/Slip (2006). He is the co-founder and manuscript reader for Brick Books, one of Canada's leading poetry presses, and was editor of the literary journal The Fiddlehead from 1991-96.
In 2008, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada.[2]
McKay was educated at the University of Western Ontario and the University of Wales, where he earned his PhD in 1971. He taught creative writing and English for 27 years in universities including the University of Western Ontario and the University of New Brunswick.
In June 2007, he won the Griffin Poetry Prize for Strike/Slip (2006). He is the co-founder and manuscript reader for Brick Books, one of Canada's leading poetry presses, and was editor of the literary journal The Fiddlehead from 1991-96.
In 2008, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada.[2]
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 9, 2013
Oh what a stunning book of poetry - Mckay writes so beautiful about the natural world, about memory and jazz - with a suppleness and lyrical grace that is always astonishing - such a deep penetrating gaze into wjat it means to be human! Lovely!
January 22, 2008
Don McKay, Apparatus (McLelland and Stewart, 1997)
I hesitate to call Don McKay a Canadian version of Hayden Carruth. For one thing, McKay hasn't been nearly as prolific. For another, Carruth has a much meaner streak of curmudgeonliness running through him that is positively delicious. Yet when I read Don McKay's wonderful poems, Carruth's name is the one I keep coming back to as the closest poetic equivalent to McKay's work. They both share a love of nature and the chops to communicate it; they both integrate modern sensibility into their poems with what seems minimal effort (and this is a very difficult thing for the nature poet to do); both release books that are guaranteed to charm your socks off. McKay, however, is a more (for lack of a more appropriate term) gentle poet.
Apparatus is Governor General award winner McKay's eighth book, and it is a beautiful thing. Two of its sections, especially, deserve mention: "Materiel," a long meditation on Cain after he has killed Abel, and "Three Eclogues," three decent-sized poems written in, well, the style one would expect given the title.
Apparatus was also a finalist for the Governor General's award (McKay's third nomination), but lost out to an equally deserving book (Dionne Brand's Land to Light On, also published by M&S). If you haven't yet discovered Don McKay, it will be worth your while to seek him out. If he can get a pave-the-earth person like me to stop and read nature poetry, imagine how good it will be for those who already love the stuff. ****
I hesitate to call Don McKay a Canadian version of Hayden Carruth. For one thing, McKay hasn't been nearly as prolific. For another, Carruth has a much meaner streak of curmudgeonliness running through him that is positively delicious. Yet when I read Don McKay's wonderful poems, Carruth's name is the one I keep coming back to as the closest poetic equivalent to McKay's work. They both share a love of nature and the chops to communicate it; they both integrate modern sensibility into their poems with what seems minimal effort (and this is a very difficult thing for the nature poet to do); both release books that are guaranteed to charm your socks off. McKay, however, is a more (for lack of a more appropriate term) gentle poet.
Apparatus is Governor General award winner McKay's eighth book, and it is a beautiful thing. Two of its sections, especially, deserve mention: "Materiel," a long meditation on Cain after he has killed Abel, and "Three Eclogues," three decent-sized poems written in, well, the style one would expect given the title.
Apparatus was also a finalist for the Governor General's award (McKay's third nomination), but lost out to an equally deserving book (Dionne Brand's Land to Light On, also published by M&S). If you haven't yet discovered Don McKay, it will be worth your while to seek him out. If he can get a pave-the-earth person like me to stop and read nature poetry, imagine how good it will be for those who already love the stuff. ****
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews