Synopses & Reviews
The poems collected in
The Face of Jack Munro may be set on the Canadian Prairies, in the Kootenay region of southeastern BC, or in Vancouver during the 1983 Solidarity public sector general strike. But the humour, concern for the individual, and biting social commentary found throughout this collection are exactly what readers of Tom Wayman have learned to expect.
"If we gave Wayman a chance to change the world, I think it would be safe in his hands. He came out of the radical sixties a radical, though I think it's more accurate and less type-casting to call him a man of common sense. The social consciousness, hatred of inequality, is the bones. So is the vision."
-Stan Draglund, Canadian Literature
Synopsis
Wayman's tenth book of poems.
About the Author
Tom Wayman was born in Ontario in 1945, but has spent most of his life in British Columbia. He has worked at a number of jobs, both blue and white-collar, across Canada and the U.S., and has helped bring into being a new movement of poetry in these countries - the incorporation of the actual conditions and effects of work. He received his MFA in English and writing at the University of California in Irvine has been awarded the Canadian Authors' Association medal for poetry, the A.J.M. Smith Prize for distinguished achievement in Canadian poetry and first prize in the USA Bicentennial Poetry Awards competition. His poetry has been published in literary magazines across the world, including The Paris Review, Saturday Night, The Hudson Review and Canadian Forum. He currently teaches at the University of Calgary and remains Squire of "Appledore," his estate in the Selkirk Mountains of southeastern BC.
Table of Contents
CONTENTSA PRAIRIE OF LIGHT
A Reason
December Letter to Pier Giorgio Di Cicco in Toronto
Forrie, O'Rourke, Penner, Sorestad
Suburban Pedagogy
Snowing
Road Songs
Giving Another Reading: Jasper Park
Articulating West
YOUR CLOTHES HAVE EXPERIENCES YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT
Raising a Relationship
Your Clothes Have Experiences You Know Nothing About
Sorting the Trash
Sleep
Nuclear Hockey
Lecture
Virus
Silos
Nationalism In No Way
The Music in the Silos
The Meadow
Enough
Paper
Mike
OPUSCULUM PAEDAGOGUM - A LITTLE WORK THAT TEACHES
Hammer
Surplus Value Poem
Bosses
The Sound: Factory System Poem
The Tongues
Surplus Value: Chalk White
Job Security
Holding the Line
Vest
Paper, Scissors, Stone
Bigfoot
Surplus Value: Interest
The Drawer
MOUNTAIN IN IT
Introductory
Dream of the Generals
Arboreal
Nuance
Breath: for Fred Wah
Country Feuds
Salmonwater
Wood
Motion Pictures
The Town Where Time Takes His Holidays
Broken Toes
Students
Why You Only Got "B Plus"
Wayman Among the Administrators
Uplands
East Kootenay Illumination
Saving the World
Monashee
THE FACE OF JACK MUNRO
The Hands
Meeting
Beetle
The Face of Jack Munro
In the Traitors' Season