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Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems - 10th Anniversary Edition
A new edition of a hockey saga, wrapping the game's story in the "intense, moody, contradictory" character of Terry Sawchuk, one of its greatest goalies.
Denied the leap and dash up the ice,
what goalies know is side to side, an inwardness of monk
and cell. They scrape. They sweep. Their eyes are elsewhere
as they contemplate their narrow place. Like saints, they pray for nothing,
which brings grace. Off-days, what they want is space. They sit apart
in bars. They know the length of streets in twenty cities.
But it's their saving sense of irony that further
isolates them as it saves.
- from "One of You"
In compact, conversational poems, Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems follows the tragic trajectory of the life and work of Terry Sawchuk, dark driven genius of a goalie who survived twenty tough seasons in an era of inadequate upper-body equipment and no player representation. But no summary touches the searching intensity of Maggs's poems. They range from meditations on ancient/modern heroism to dramatic capsules of actual games, in which the mystery of character meets the mystery of transcendent physical performance. Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems is illustrated with photographs mirroring the text, depicting key moments in the career of Terry Sawchuk, his exploits and his agony.
This 10th anniversary edition of the book marks both the 50th anniversary of the last time the Leafs won the Stanley Cup and the 100th anniversary of the Leafs as a team. With rich reflections on the book by novelist Angie Abdou and Hockey Night in Canada host Ron MacLean, as well as excerpts from scores of reviews by the likes of Gord Downie and Dave Bidini, this new edition of Night Work is a must-have for lovers of hockey and poetry alike.
Denied the leap and dash up the ice,
what goalies know is side to side, an inwardness of monk
and cell. They scrape. They sweep. Their eyes are elsewhere
as they contemplate their narrow place. Like saints, they pray for nothing,
which brings grace. Off-days, what they want is space. They sit apart
in bars. They know the length of streets in twenty cities.
But it's their saving sense of irony that further
isolates them as it saves.
- from "One of You"
In compact, conversational poems, Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems follows the tragic trajectory of the life and work of Terry Sawchuk, dark driven genius of a goalie who survived twenty tough seasons in an era of inadequate upper-body equipment and no player representation. But no summary touches the searching intensity of Maggs's poems. They range from meditations on ancient/modern heroism to dramatic capsules of actual games, in which the mystery of character meets the mystery of transcendent physical performance. Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems is illustrated with photographs mirroring the text, depicting key moments in the career of Terry Sawchuk, his exploits and his agony.
This 10th anniversary edition of the book marks both the 50th anniversary of the last time the Leafs won the Stanley Cup and the 100th anniversary of the Leafs as a team. With rich reflections on the book by novelist Angie Abdou and Hockey Night in Canada host Ron MacLean, as well as excerpts from scores of reviews by the likes of Gord Downie and Dave Bidini, this new edition of Night Work is a must-have for lovers of hockey and poetry alike.
254 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 4, 2011
Randall Maggs' gritty poetry collection Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems casts a semi-biographical gaze on the life and times of legendary and troubled NHL goalie Terry Sawchuk. Arguably the standard by which hockey goaltenders are still measured today, with many records that have only recently been broken, Sawchuk played most of his 21 seasons in the NHL, spanning the 1950s and 60s, with little of the protective equipment in which modern goalies gird themselves. He also played in an era where backup goalies weren't customary. This foreshadows and explains a lot.
How did Maggs formulate the balance of history, fact and imaginative interpretation to come up with his fierce and wrenching version of the Terry Sawchuk story? As he explains in the closing acknowledgements:
"What appears in the poems is based on stories told to me by those listed gratefully below or on what I have read or on what I brought to the book from my own life and playing days. As far as pure veracity is concerned, I don't know which of the three would be the most unreliable."
(Those listed gratefully include sports greats - players, officials and writers such as Johnny Bower, Carl Brewer, Ken Dryden, Ron Ellis, Trent Frayne, Dick Irvin, Red Storey and Stephen Brunt, as well as poetry greats Don McKay and Karen Solie.)
Maggs takes a varied approach to presenting Sawchuk the man, the figure and the legend, with different variations of dense but absorbing blank verse forms, and with a wide range of perspectives and colourful, often haunting voices. The tales, not just of action on the ice, but in the locker room, facing or avoiding the media, travelling, finding some quiet and solace on a frozen lake, run the gamut from rollicking and down to earth to dark and brooding to lyrical.
Sensitively researched and curated photographs are touchstones for several of the poems and fragments in this collection, and are arresting all on their own. In the mid-1960s, Life Magazine had a makeup artist superimpose scars and stitches on Sawchuk's face to illustrate all of the injuries he'd incurred over his career. That picture concludes the collection, and is a wrenching poem unto itself.
The mounting inventory of Sawchuk's mental and emotional suffering, including alcoholism and depression, is perhaps even longer than the physical injuries that either sparked or exacerbated his ongoing woes. But arching over it all and captured powerfully in Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems was the man's unstinting determination to succeed and triumph and, in his way, transcend the harsh, grinding vocation he'd made his own and in the process, transcend time, even if only one game, one period or one play at a time.
Talk's over at the glass, the captains
waved away. The referee holds four fingers up
and folds his arms, four seconds he wants put back
on the clock. Son of a bitch, an old defender
sags against the boards. Still, imagine the power,
to kick time's arse like that.
How did Maggs formulate the balance of history, fact and imaginative interpretation to come up with his fierce and wrenching version of the Terry Sawchuk story? As he explains in the closing acknowledgements:
"What appears in the poems is based on stories told to me by those listed gratefully below or on what I have read or on what I brought to the book from my own life and playing days. As far as pure veracity is concerned, I don't know which of the three would be the most unreliable."
(Those listed gratefully include sports greats - players, officials and writers such as Johnny Bower, Carl Brewer, Ken Dryden, Ron Ellis, Trent Frayne, Dick Irvin, Red Storey and Stephen Brunt, as well as poetry greats Don McKay and Karen Solie.)
Maggs takes a varied approach to presenting Sawchuk the man, the figure and the legend, with different variations of dense but absorbing blank verse forms, and with a wide range of perspectives and colourful, often haunting voices. The tales, not just of action on the ice, but in the locker room, facing or avoiding the media, travelling, finding some quiet and solace on a frozen lake, run the gamut from rollicking and down to earth to dark and brooding to lyrical.
Sensitively researched and curated photographs are touchstones for several of the poems and fragments in this collection, and are arresting all on their own. In the mid-1960s, Life Magazine had a makeup artist superimpose scars and stitches on Sawchuk's face to illustrate all of the injuries he'd incurred over his career. That picture concludes the collection, and is a wrenching poem unto itself.
The mounting inventory of Sawchuk's mental and emotional suffering, including alcoholism and depression, is perhaps even longer than the physical injuries that either sparked or exacerbated his ongoing woes. But arching over it all and captured powerfully in Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems was the man's unstinting determination to succeed and triumph and, in his way, transcend the harsh, grinding vocation he'd made his own and in the process, transcend time, even if only one game, one period or one play at a time.
Talk's over at the glass, the captains
waved away. The referee holds four fingers up
and folds his arms, four seconds he wants put back
on the clock. Son of a bitch, an old defender
sags against the boards. Still, imagine the power,
to kick time's arse like that.
November 18, 2010
Hat trick?
Shut out?
I'm not sure about my hockey terminology but this is one hell of a book.
Shut out?
I'm not sure about my hockey terminology but this is one hell of a book.
June 8, 2025
I’m not really sure how I feel about these poems.
On one hand, I liked the atmosphere, themes, and, of course, the subject matter.
I had trouble knowing from who’s point of view the poem was written and who he was quoting in the poem. I feel like the information he accumulated could have been relayed in the form of a novel instead, and it would have been easier to follow.
But maybe I’m just thick. Well, I KNOW I'm thick.
On one hand, I liked the atmosphere, themes, and, of course, the subject matter.
I had trouble knowing from who’s point of view the poem was written and who he was quoting in the poem. I feel like the information he accumulated could have been relayed in the form of a novel instead, and it would have been easier to follow.
But maybe I’m just thick. Well, I KNOW I'm thick.
January 18, 2025
Great book, didn't know what to expect when getting this book. So much can be said in so few words.
January 28, 2011
Randall's book of hockey poems gives us all a better understanding of the man behind the mask, Hall of Fame netminder, Terry Sawchuk. A must read for hockey fans everywhere!
TTQ's Poem of the Week - What I Liked About Bars.
http://thetorontoquarterly.blogspot.c...
TTQ's Poem of the Week - What I Liked About Bars.
http://thetorontoquarterly.blogspot.c...
February 10, 2019
Great set of poems about arguably the greatest goaltender of all-time.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews