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Nine years in the making, award-winning poet Kevin Connolly¿s new collection extends its author¿s investigation of identity, authority, intention, and authenticity.What is public poetry? In an age of tweets and trolls, what should it even try to be? Through revision, redaction, ventriloquism, homage, self-sabotage, and outright plunder, the poems in Connolly¿s
Xiphoid Process interrogate the alleged futility and alleged insight of mid-life. Are we who we are simply because we¿d otherwise be nothing? Or are we (more hopefully) something parked, for a time, in time, trying to make something useful out of the experience? Walt Whitman, Tom Petty, Alec Baldwin, Doug Stanhope, Journey, Judd Nelson, Billy Ripken, Johnny Weissmuller, Don Felder, Lindsay Lohan, Shiprock, NM, the police blotter at Point Reyes Station, California, and the moons of Saturn are all poised to make their case in the poet¿s latest deliberations.
About the author
Kevin Connolly is a poet, journalist, and editor. He lives in Toronto's east end with his partner, writer Gil Adamson.
Summary
Nine years in the making, award-winning poet Kevin Connolly’s new collection extends its author’s investigation of identity, authority, intention, and authenticity.
What is public poetry? In an age of tweets and trolls, what should it even try to be? Through revision, redaction, ventriloquism, homage, self-sabotage, and outright plunder, the poems in Connolly’s Xiphoid Process interrogate the alleged futility and alleged insight of mid-life. Are we who we are simply because we’d otherwise be nothing? Or are we (more hopefully) something parked, for a time, in time, trying to make something useful out of the experience? Walt Whitman, Tom Petty, Alec Baldwin, Doug Stanhope, Journey, Judd Nelson, Billy Ripken, Johnny Weissmuller, Don Felder, Lindsay Lohan, Shiprock, NM, the police blotter at Point Reyes Station, California, and the moons of Saturn are all poised to make their case in the poet’s latest deliberations.
Additional text
Praise for Kevin Connolly and drift:
“Whitman established his individuality by incorporating multitudes. Connolly, on the other hand, lives in a world where it’s nearly impossible to be an individual. Everyone represents everyone else everything reflects everything, every day another building of mirrors goes up and everyone, rather than containing multitudes, has become contained by multitudes.” Chicago Review
“Peppered with recognizable forms and diction, yet distinctly different in tone and content, drift sets Kevin Connolly apart from his contemporaries as a poet who unexpectedly delights in toying with reader expectations.” Globe and Mail
Praise for Kevin Connolly and Revolver:
“What astounds the reader is the virtuosity with which Connolly wields all the poetic tools at his disposal. And this artistic multiplicity is not some elaborate masquerade. Connolly isn’t pretending to be 45 different kinds of poet. Here, he is 45 different kinds of poet, and each is the authentic Kevin Connolly.” Globe and Mail
“Kevin Connolly is definitely not one of the pack. Revolver, his freewheeling fourth collection, is the versatile poet’s follow up to drift . . . The 45 poems cycle through a mix of diction and tone, from nonsense verse to restrained elegy . . . Connolly’s work is full of sly jokes, puns, and wordplay . . . The entire collection is an entertaining game of words, starting with the table of contents.” Toronto Star (Metro)
