Synopses & Reviews
Poetry. In his latest collection, Steve Luxton navigates the mid-passages, facing what his favourite character, the notorious Doc Holliday, terms "the wasting diseases: Life, sonofabitch Fate, Love." Pieces both lyrical and serio-comic weigh sickness and personal mortality, the death of a shell-shocked father, and the shenanigans of this Age's public life. In LUNA MOTH AND OTHER POEMS, the poet, by now well tutored in human fragility and frailty, discovers that being alive at all in this very odd world seems "stranger by far / than salvation or personal immortality." Nevertheless, though Fear may be "the only deity, first and last," Luxton also celebrates the deep beauty in the recesses of nature, and, redeemingly, "a little companionship." With both formal and experimental elements, these vividly figured, emotionally compelling poems tantalizingly sing and tartly satirize.
Synopsis
With, arguably, one of the best poems on the luna moth available
In his latest collection, Steve Luxton navigates the mid-passages, facing what his favourite character, the notorious Doc Holliday, terms "the wasting diseases: Life, sonofabitch Fate, Love." Pieces both lyrical and serio-comic weigh sickness and personal mortality, the death of a shell-shocked father, and the shenanigans of this Age's public life. In Luna Moth and Other Poems, the poet, by now well tutored in human fragility and frailty, discovers that being alive at all in this very odd world seems "stranger by far / than salvation or personal immortality." Nevertheless, though Fear may be "the only deity, first and last," Luxton also celebrates the deep beauty in the recesses of nature, and, redeemingly, "a little companionship." With both formal and experimental elements, these vividly figured, emotionally compelling poems tantalizingly sing and tartly satirize.
About the Author
Born in Coventry, England, Steve Luxton lives in Montreal and also near Ayers Cliff in the rural Eastern Townships of Quebec. By profession a teacher, he works at John Abbott College and Concordia University in the city. An original editor of both Matrix and The Moosehead Review, his first completed book of poems the hills that pass by was published in 1987, and his second volume Iridium in 1993. Luna Moth and Other Poems is his third full collection.