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Overview
Beloved for his intimate, lyrical poetry, Marty’s depiction of selfhood, connection to place and to landscape have proven him a unique and dissenting voice in Canadian literature as well as a consistent presence in the Canadian environmental movement. These are poems, often strongly resonant of western speech, that celebrate all the vicissitudes of rural life, the loves and losses, the valleys and peaks of life on the prairies, foothills and in the mountains of Alberta and British Columbia.
This first-ever collected works, featuring forward written by Kit Dobson and Owen Percy, and interview conducted by Pamela Banting, brings together old and new poems, published and unpublished works, in a celebration of the career and artistry of a Western Canadian icon.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781774390740 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | NeWest Publishers, Limited |
| Publication date: | 05/15/2023 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 506 KB |
About the Author
Sid Marty is a poet, author and musician based near the communities of Pincher Creek and the Crowsnest Pass. He is the author of five books of poetry and five nonfiction works. Though best known as a nonfiction author, he began his career as a poet. His first book, Headwaters (1973 ) was published to widespread national acclaim. Over the years, he has continued to publish poems in books, school texts, anthologies and magazines. The culmination of all that dedication to the “crafte so longe to lerne” is this collection of poems both published and new.
These are poems, often strongly resonant of western speech, that celebrate all the vicissitudes of rural life, the loves and losses, the valleys and peaks of life on the prairies, foothills and in the mountains of Alberta and British Columbia.
Sid Marty is a poet, author and musician based near the communities of Pincher Creek and the Crowsnest Pass. He is the author of five books of poetry and five nonfiction works. Though best known as a nonfiction author, he began his career as a poet. His first book, Headwaters (1973 ) was published to widespread national acclaim. Over the years, he has continued to publish poems in books, school texts, anthologies and magazines. The culmination of all that dedication to the “crafte so longe to lerne” is this collection of poems both published and new.
Read an Excerpt
INTRODUCTION
Owen Percy and Kit Dobson
The goal of this volume is twofold: first, to introduce new readers to the poetry of Sid Marty and, second, to collect disparate, out-of-print, or unavailable poems into a single, accessible volume. If this book succeeds in these labours, then it can be counted a success. If it can go beyond those two points, too, and demonstrate that so-called regional writing – in this case “prairie writing” and “mountain writing” – as practiced by Sid Marty at least, is much more than facile stereotypes about place or landscape – if this book can make the case (which needs to be made on an ongoing basis) in favour of a politically nuanced, thoughtful, and deeply poetic practice of environmental and social stewardship – then it will have matched the hopes of the authors of this introduction.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements xiii
Preface xv
Introduction xvii
The ’60s: A Studentin Montreal
Mirror: 1966 3
Sixteenth Summer 3
Mr. Jones Goes to College 4
Saboteur 5
McGregor Avenue 6
Mr. Jones Reads Mother Courage 7
William Blake in Montreal 8
Kidnap, Le Parc Percy Walters 9
Ghislaine 10
Your Face Was a Single Flame in the Sea 11
Look Forward, Look Back 12
The Blue Toque 13
Mint Tea and Maple Sugar 14
Looking Home 14
Wind, Moon and a Memory of 1962 15
The ’70s: Tumbleweed Harvest
Tired in the Morning 21
Now That the Clouds are Gone Again 21
Medicine Hat 23
Orland Marty: 1947 24
The Price of Water 26
The Prairie 27
Tumbleweed Harvest 29
On a Hunt 29
Raw Horseflesh 30
Lights That Go out 30
The Aftermap 32
The ’70s: Headwaters
Dawn. Jinglin’ Ponies 35
Siwashing 36
Each Mountain 38
Burnt by the Tree 39
A Two Years Cub 39
Dead Words 41
Inside the Map 41
Shawn 42
August, the Moon of Ripe Berries 43
Toad 45
Skid Horse 46
Brush Wolf 48
Low Pass 49
Wild News 50
Coyote Returns 51
Three Bears 52
Wolf Willow 54
My Own Country 55
In the Moon of Frozen Leaves 57
Portents of Spring 58
Coyote’s Feast 59
Fox on the Wire 60
Meat in the Snow 60
Easter Highway 62
The Pump 63
Yellowhead 64
Hay Meadow Creek 65
Packing Dynamite 66
The Work of Hands 67
Fire on the Railway 68
The Pocahontas Kid 69
Abbot 70
When It Rained 71
The Fires 72
Bear Again 77
The Cut 78
Throwing the Diamond 79
Maligne Lake Poem 80
Chainsaw Man 81
Too Hot to Sleep 82
Liturgy for a Dead Fuel Pump 84
By the Great Majestic 85
Grub Hoe 86
Saskatchewan Crossing Café 87
Toby 88
On Being Spread Thin 89
Queen’s Hotel Veterinary Lecture 90
For Young Men 92
Bright Morning 93
Among the Drowning Singers 94
Saskatchewan and the Rocky Mountains 95
Mercy 96
The Argument for Ascending 97
A Search 98
The Mad Mountaineer 99
Urban Perils 101
Night Camp Below Maligne Pass 102
On Highway 16, Jasper 103
Drowning 105
On the Boundary 108
Routine 109
To a Black Bear 110
In this Season 112
Deer Lodge, Off Season 113
Finding a Woman 114
She Asks for a History 116
Departure 117
The Blaze 118
The Death of Mustahya 119
Lightning Storm 120
Cairn Pass 121
Purple 122
Five Wolves 123
Riding Out of Rocky Forks Country 125
Coyote Again 127
Pushing the Boundary 128
Invitation and Covenant 129
Late ’70s: Nobody Danced With Miss Rodeo
I The Spur
When I joined the Outfit 134
À La Claire Fontaine 135
The Spur 140
Territory 141
Search and Rescue 142
The Year is Any Year 148
Swamp King 148
In the Arms of the Family 151
Big Game 154
When I Left 155
II Nobody Danced With Miss Rodeo
Greyhound 156
News 162
The Rifle 162
I’m So Lonesome In the Saddle Since My Horse Died 164
Nobody Danced With Miss Rodeo 167
The Weightlifter 170
For Nelson Small Legs Jr. 172
The Hunter 174
On a Bus Near Salmon Arm 175
At Craigellachie 176
In the Dome Car of the “Canadian” 177
Qu’Appelle 178
III The Knife Of Love
Jack be Nimble 179
The Colours 180
Love Song of the Overweight Angel 181
The Awakening 184
Prisoner 185
The Touch 186
Gravity 187
There Just Ain’t No Respect 189
Fatherhood 192
Living Without You 193
The Knife of Love 195
Revelation 198
Turning to Meet the World 199
Our Daily Death 200
For My Sons 201
Mr. Porcupine 201
The Betrayal 203
The Fording 204
’80s and ’90s:Sky Humour
Prologue With Restricted Weapon 209
I Coyote Charivari
Mountains 211
Raven the Imitator 212
An Arrowhead 212
Barbed Wire 213
Justice 215
The Amulet 216
On Lineham Ledge 217
Lunar Eclipse 219
Coyote Charivari 220
Chanson Du Déjeuner Gratis 221
Hunting Elk 223
Elk Jump Up All Around You 224
Bulls In November 224
The Knife 225
II At The Breaking Of Drought
Medicine 226
The Question 227
Beaver Creek, August 228
Fire Dance 229
Sky Humour 229
The Trick 230
When Fire Starts to Travel 230
Terry Fox 233
An Apparition 234
The Desperate 235
Hope 236
If Love Were Enough 236
They Plough the Burnt Crops Under 237
By Oldman’s River 237
At the Breaking of Drought 238
Rain 239
The Dam 240
Sunflowers 241
What Coyotes Fear 242
Steve 242
Heartwood 243
III Another Blue Guitar
As the Age Returns to Swords 244
Shooting Stars 245
Joker’s Stilts 246
The Rider With Good Hands 247
After the Vernal Equinox 249
Hands of my Fathers 249
“How Can I Keep From Singing?” 251
You Had to Be There 252
Ballad of the Onion 253
Another Blue Guitar 254
Mr. Ditty Wah Ditty 256
This Room 257
IV Roofing Time
A Prayer in Lieu of Wind Chimes 258
Roofing Time 259
Human Heat 261
Funny How Things Go On 262
The Complainer 263
Putting Up Wood 263
To Touch Once More 264
Earth Day 266
Moab 267
1969–2021: A Poem Corral
I Through Gates of Rock and Cloud
Strangerstone 271
April Night On Boundary Slough 272
The Silvertip 273
Out in the Lonesome Valleys 274
Winter Patrol 275
Skiing Powder Snow 276
One Dead Man, One Biscuit 277
Crippled on the Highway 279
A One Horse Poem 280
Midnight Mountains 283
The Eau Claire Log Drivers 285
Rescue 286
At Two Jack Lake 287
4×4 Blues 287
An Old Cabin 288
II In The Arms Of The Family
Under the Devil’s Head 290
Red Potatoes 291
I Think of You, Giving Birth 292
Nursing 293
The Sand Pile 293
Canmore Legion Christmas Party 294
The Climber 295
The Ache 296
Southern Alberta 297
Bull Pine Courage 298
Scruples 299
Death of the Chainsaw 300
Meat for the Winter 301
Kindness 302
Now the Moon 303
The Gift 304
Someone 305
After the Jonestown Massacre 306
I Drink Water in the Evening 307
The Wound 307
Failures 308
The Surgeon 308
Coulee’s Ball 310
Tea on a Winter Afternoon 312
Crutches 313
Dust 314
Ken Hamm: Blues Singer 315
Transplant 317
At Crowsnest Lake 318
By the Inonoaklin 319
Here in Heaven 321
On a Night in June 322
Ten Years 323
The Warning Light 324
The Pangolin 325
The Deaf Conductor 327
The Sun 328
III Play Me That Tune
Fly Time 330
Highway Heraldry 331
Deer Along the Moyie 332
The Spadefoot 333
Play Me That Tune 334
Stirrup Cups 336
The White Train 338
Spoor 339
IV A Graph Of The Wind
Segue 342
The Little Brown Bat 342
Old Man, Old Horses 343
The Hawk Redux 344
A Sign 345
The Wrench 346
The Comfortable 347
A Graph of the Wind 348
Candy 350
Winter 351
Cross-Country 352
Chinooked 353
There’s a Way 354
Aspens 355
High-Speed Internet 357
Return of the Eagle 358
There Was A Man 359
Kinnikinnik 361
The Cinnamon 362
V Motion’s Editor
For the Old Maestro 364
On the 27th of June 366
Sentenced 368
Dear Mr. Marty 369
The Disappointment in Edmonton 370
One Road 374
Voices Stronger Than Mine 375
Reading/Leading 377
On the Death of the Famous Poet 378
The History Writer 379
The NonFiction Writer (a non-fiction poem) 380
Poem for Mary 383
“Tell Us About Your Writing Process” 385
The Statue of Al Purdy 387
Motion’s Editor 389
The Greeting 393
Afterword: “Just More Routine Scenic Splendour” An Interview with Sid Marty by Pamela Banting 397