Raising Eyebrows

by Gary Barwin

The surrealist antics of Gary Barwin will run the predictability of your universe through a particle accelerator. Watch as your right eyebrow turns into you as a child. Watch Jeff connect the mower to the Internet to cut other people's lawns. Hear the sploosh as Barwin drops some extra syllables in Basho's frog pond.
Funny, smart and as unexpected as the Spanish Inquisition, Raising Eyebrows is divided into four mind-boggling sections - dirty dogs, my life in the salad spinner, ukiah poems: frogments from the frag pond, and bassoon throng blues. Raising Eyebrows will make you do just that.

112 pages, Paperback

First published December 19, 1997

About the author

GARY BARWIN is a writer, composer, and multidisciplinary artist and the author of 21 books of poetry, fiction and books for children. His bestselling novel [Book: Yiddish for Pirates] won the 2017 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour and was a Governor General’s Award and Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist and has recently been longlisted for the Leacock Medal. His latest poetry collection is No TV for Woodpeckers His work has appeared widely in journals, including Poetry (Chicago), The Walrus and the Paris Review blog. A finalist for the National Magazine Awards (Poetry), he is a three-time recipient of Hamilton Poetry Book of the Year, and has also received the Hamilton Arts Award for Literature. He is was Writer-in-Residence at Western University and the London Public Library and is currently Art Forms Writer-in-residence for at-risk youth and will be Writer-in Residence at McMaster University and the Hamilton Public Library in 2017-2018. Barwin lives in Hamilton, Ontario and at garybarwin.com

Reviews

[Debbie Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Expect to raise your eyebrows! When I first heard Canadian poet Gary Barwin perform (versus read) at a poetry event, I withheld my judgment about his work. Barwin’s gift for the theatrical as well as his high energy levels left my inner resources depleted. His poems reminded me of ‘Silly Putty’, that zany toy that stretches and bounces not only on wooden floors, but on bedposts, street corners and unfathomable locations. Hold onto your poetic saddle because this bucking “book” bronco bucks! Expect to be entertained! The live audience cheered and laughed at his antics.

My appreciation of Barwin’s talent grew months later after savouring his earlier book Raising Eyebrows. For me, I enjoyed and preferred sipping one poem at a time versus gulping the whole collection in one sitting. In this collection, Barwin explores everyday life with everyday characters, families, and often dogs in surreal settings. Sometimes Barwin rambles. Sometimes his word images are obtuse. However, overall, his work is original, strong, and sprinkled with humour. For example: “Dad’s wearing scuba gear/inside of Mom’s waterbed.” and in another poem he personifies the letter C where C is a prostitute and “stands in the street/against doorway/waiting for D”.

In another scene, he plays with the car pool image: “there is something religious/about filling up a car/with water.” In another poem, he pens “your tongue is a rakeful of leaves/dragged along the ground as/the weather gets cold.”

Expect the unexpected! Raise those eyebrows, your family and your magnifying glasses. This is a book you need to read more than once.