{"product_id":"small-mechanics-isbn-9780771023293","title":"Small Mechanics","description":"A radiant collection of new poems from one of Canada's most renowned and well-read poets.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe poems in Lorna Crozier's rich and wide-ranging new collection, a modern bestiary and a book of mourning, are both shadowed and illuminated by the passing of time, the small mechanics of the body as it ages, the fine-tuning of what a life becomes when parents and old friends are gone. Brilliantly poised between the mythic and the everyday, the anecdotal and the delicately lyrical, these poems contain the wit, irreverence, and startling imagery for which Crozier is justly celebrated. You’ll find Bach and Dostoevsky, a poem that turns into a dog, a religion founded by cats, and wood rats that dance on shingles. These poems turn over the stones of words and find what lies beneath, reminding us why Lorna Crozier is one of Canada’s most well-read and commanding voices.\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eThe Blue Hour of the Day: Selected Poems\u003c\/i\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“[A] marvelous Canadian poet, storyteller, truth-teller, visionary.”\u003cbr\u003e—Ursula K Le Guin, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Lorna Crozier's \u003ci\u003eThe Blue Hour of the Day\u003c\/i\u003e reads like one long autobiographical poem of astonishing coherence and beauty, and so powerful that, after I'd closed the book, I found that I'd unwittingly learnt several of the lines by heart.\" \u003cbr\u003e—Alberto Manguel, \u003ci\u003eTimes Literary Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e Books of the Yea\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Crozier writes of a world of imperfection, clumsiness, violence, betrayal, pain, and in spite of everything, delight and love. . . . Always accessible, Crozier speaks a language we understand, but she uses it to tell us of things we don’t.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eCanadian Literature\u003c\/i\u003eLORNA CROZIER is the author of the memoir \u003ci\u003eThrough the Garden\u003c\/i\u003e, a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction and a \u003ci\u003eGlobe and Mail\u003c\/i\u003e 100 Best Book. She has published eighteen books of poetry, including\u003ci\u003e God of Shadows\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eWhat the Soul Doesn't Want\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Wrong Cat\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eSmall Mechanics\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Blue Hour of the Day: Selected Poems\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eWhetstone\u003c\/i\u003e. She is also the author of\u003ci\u003e The Book of Marvels: A Compendium of Everyday Things \u003c\/i\u003eand the memoir \u003ci\u003eSmall Beneath the Sky\u003c\/i\u003e, which won the Hubert Evans Award for Creative Nonfiction. She won the Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry for\u003ci\u003e Inventing the Hawk \u003c\/i\u003eand three additional collections were finalists for the Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry. She has received many awards and honours including the Canadian Authors Association Award, three Pat Lowther Memorial Awards, and the BC Lieutenant Governor's Award for Literary Excellence. She is a Professor Emerita at the University of Victoria and an Officer of the Order of Canada, and she has received five honorary doctorates for her contributions to Canadian literature. Born in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, she now lives in British Columbia.\u003cb\u003eLAST BREATH\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot a living soul about,\u003cbr\u003eexcept for me and the magpie. I know\u003cbr\u003eif I don’t keep moving, he’ll pluck\u003cbr\u003ethe breath from my body, taste it\u003cbr\u003eon his tongue before it slides\u003cbr\u003edown his throat, giving him new prophecies\u003cbr\u003eto speak. He’s the bird Noah didn’t send out,\u003cbr\u003eafraid he’d carry the ark’s complaints to heaven.\u003cbr\u003eTonight he scallops from the copse of willows\u003cbr\u003eto the power pole, stares down at me. I match him\u003cbr\u003ecry for cry, not knowing what I mean but feeling\u003cbr\u003egood about it, the bird part of my brain lit up.\u003cbr\u003eCoyotes, too, start their music as if the magpie’s\u003cbr\u003eflown in to be the guest conductor\u003cbr\u003efor the length of time it takes the sun to sink.\u003cbr\u003eHe flips his tail, bringing up the oboes\u003cbr\u003ethen the high notes of the flutes. Other souls,\u003cbr\u003ethose I sense but cannot see,\u003cbr\u003ewait among the stones along the riverbank\u003cbr\u003euntil they’re sure the magpie is distracted,\u003cbr\u003ethen scentless and inedible to anyone but him,\u003cbr\u003ethey make their wingless foray\u003cbr\u003eacross the ice and running water,\u003cbr\u003emouthfuls of silence that, if not for coyotes,\u003cbr\u003ethe magpie would hear.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eDON’T SAY IT\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou admire the wild grasses\u003cbr\u003efor their reticence.\u003cbr\u003eWhen you cut across the dusk for home,\u003cbr\u003ethe meadow is more beautiful\u003cbr\u003efor all it keeps inside.\u003cbr\u003eSyllables of seeds catch in your socks\u003cbr\u003ebut they don’t need to say,\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThank you, friend,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eeven if you’ve carried them\u003cbr\u003efor miles.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTHE FIRST DAY OF THE YEAR\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe new writer sucks her fingers\u003cbr\u003ein her crib. There is nothing\u003cbr\u003eto distinguish her – like the extra toe\u003cbr\u003eon Hemingway’s\u003cbr\u003eliterary cats – from all the other\u003cbr\u003ebabies down the block.\u003cbr\u003eShe is dreaming ink\u003cbr\u003ethough she hasn’t seen it\u003cbr\u003ein this world yet\u003cbr\u003eand no one knows,\u003cbr\u003eleast of all her parents,\u003cbr\u003eshe loves nothing\u003cbr\u003ebetter than the blank\u003cbr\u003eflat whiteness\u003cbr\u003eof the bottom sheet\u003cbr\u003ewhen she’s laid damp\u003cbr\u003efrom her morning bath\u003cbr\u003eupon it.","brand":"McClelland \u0026 Stewart","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303600214245,"sku":"NP9780771023293","price":18.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780771023293.jpg?v=1767736789","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/small-mechanics-isbn-9780771023293","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}