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Haunted Hills and Hanging Valleys: Selected Poems 1969-2004
Thirty-five years after the publication of his first book, Peter Trower has brought together his finest poems for the beautiful, thorough and definitive volume Haunted Hills and Hanging Valleys .
From whistle punk to smelter worker to faller to crane operator, Trower worked up and down the West Coast for 22 years collecting the stories and soaking in the vivid imagery and personalities that would characterize much of his perceptively crafted, musical poetry. Haunted Hills and Hanging Valleys presents for the first time the best work of a writing career that has drawn Trower praise as "the poet laureate of this mountain kingdom" from Al Purdy and for "heft and passion and a gift for telling place and detail" from Irving Layton. This long-awaited book will confirm Trower's place as one of our country's most important poets.
From whistle punk to smelter worker to faller to crane operator, Trower worked up and down the West Coast for 22 years collecting the stories and soaking in the vivid imagery and personalities that would characterize much of his perceptively crafted, musical poetry. Haunted Hills and Hanging Valleys presents for the first time the best work of a writing career that has drawn Trower praise as "the poet laureate of this mountain kingdom" from Al Purdy and for "heft and passion and a gift for telling place and detail" from Irving Layton. This long-awaited book will confirm Trower's place as one of our country's most important poets.
- GenresPoetry
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
17 people want to read
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 3, 2019
I've been browsing through collections of Peter Trower's poetry and decided finally, to just dig in and finish one of them start to finish.
It took me a month because these poems demand to be savoured. Don't read them on a crowded bus. People will look at you funny. His words insist on being read aloud. Lines and whole poems beg to be repeated over and over and even copied.
This is glorious mentor text: both inspirational and intimidating. His work feels like a cross between Robert Service and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. My brother (who I just had to share some of these with) claims Deepcity Blues is like poetry from a Sam Spade novel. A Testament of Hills reveals what it means to be a west coast logger.
Peter Trower was a Vancouver poet who's fame is mostly restricted to the west coast. He deserves to be read more widely!
It took me a month because these poems demand to be savoured. Don't read them on a crowded bus. People will look at you funny. His words insist on being read aloud. Lines and whole poems beg to be repeated over and over and even copied.
This is glorious mentor text: both inspirational and intimidating. His work feels like a cross between Robert Service and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. My brother (who I just had to share some of these with) claims Deepcity Blues is like poetry from a Sam Spade novel. A Testament of Hills reveals what it means to be a west coast logger.
Peter Trower was a Vancouver poet who's fame is mostly restricted to the west coast. He deserves to be read more widely!
Displaying 1 of 1 review