A bird outside the window / sounds like it’s / gargling sequins

Lightness, clarity, freshness, simplicity – all can be used to describe this latest collection of poems by Mark Frutkin. Throughout, the poet shines his light on subjects as diverse as the cathedral of Chartres, ancient Chinese poets, the art of listening, and tiny, black beetles that devour books. Poems as thin and sharp as a blade and as sweet as honeysuckle. A unique work that dissolves into the silence of dusk like the lucid, haunting knock of the hermit thrush.

“These poems are deceptively simple as the button that is “a flying saucer / flitting through a slit / into the next dimension.” Running through them there’s a humour that’s cosmic and domestic, a kettle-and–button wisdom that leaves you open, empty, and grateful.”

– Don McKay

“You can actually see the ineffable from many of these lines, can feel it brushing against your palm, can smell it in the binding of this very book. It’s up to you whether you eat these poems whole or take your time, nibble by nibble.”

– Barry Dempster