A Company of Angels

by Florence McNeil

Florence McNeil has long been admired for the depth of compassion in her poetry, writing poems of clarity and lucidity, through several previous books of poetry and a well-received adult novel, Breathing Each Others Air. In this new book, A Company of Angels she transforms the delicate details of a tentative and personal grief into a universal statement of feeling. She presents a dual sequence of poems, both heralding a company of angels, evoking the enigma of the angelic within. In the first company of angels, through processing grief and the past, a private experience of grief is examined and transcended. In the second half, the poet be-comes more detached, and moves to the biographical, with a look at Lewis Carolls relationship with Alice Liddel. Florence McNeils poetry has always been concerned with precision detail and clarity of expression, and in A Company of Angels, she extends the range of her lyrical voice.

72 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Florence McNeil was born and raised in Vancouver. She has her BA and MA in creative writing from UBC, and spent a number of years teaching in Canadian and American Universities. She has published 11 books of poetry, three novels for young readers, a picture book for children, a novel for adults and two plays. She has also edited two books of poetry. Her work has been translated into a dozen languages, and has won awards in Canada and the U.S.