What do you think?
Rate this book
Agape: Heaven & Earth
"These poems navigate contrary states: experience and innocence; loss and ecstasy; restraint and lyric outpouring. MacKenzie's ominous "wrong dark ravine/...wrong dark wind" is set against the buoyant romantic: "I shall Errol Flynn my way into your heart." The reader of Bob MacKenzie's poems will discover a striking range of poetic form and human experience. MacKenzie writes in "Beyond Convergence: The Whistle Dying," of "Gods we dream no more." Don't let the air of resignation fool you - there is ample resonant dreaming in MacKenzie's poetry."
- Jeanette Lynes, Author of "Archive of the Undressed"
"Agape: Heaven & Earth celebrates Bob MacKenzie's 50 year career writing and publishing poetry in Canada, featuring 148 selected poems from 1965 to the present."
Reviewer John Ambury writes:
"Bob MacKenzie is a highly respected poet and lyricist living in Kingston, Ontario. His immense talent, prolific output, and public readings have already earned him recognition well beyond his local area. Now, this excellent volume will firmly establish his ranking among the most outstanding contemporary poets in Canada.
"MacKenzie has published earlier collections, including collaborations. What makes "Agape: Heaven & Earth" so different and exceptional is its scope. Not a snapshot of a period in the writers development, this sweeping aggregation is a curated album of his whole poetic existence to date: a retrospective (for an artist almost too young to have one). It contains 148 poems, carefully chosen from the many hundreds he has written over 50 years - a full five decades. The album's pages are not in chronological order; they are arranged according to motifs, both spiritual and worldly. He observes that during the selection process: 'I discovered themes and resonances that I had never noticed before.' The result is a sumptuously-laid buffet of both simple and layered meanings, presented through a brilliant kaleidoscope of language.
"MacKenzie writes from both his heart and his mind, guided by how his inspirations spark, emerge, and take shape. One result is that his poems span the entire range of accessibility, from straightforward expressions to obscure imaginings. With apologies for neither - the former pieces are never trite, the latter ones never pretentious. Proficient with metre and rhyme as well as informal structure, he has an acute ear for what forms best express what ideas.
"Bob Mackenzie's poetry is insightful and emotional, intelligent and honest. And eclectic: his subjects are as wide-ranging as the entire experience of being sentient. He finds unique personal inspiration everywhere: in literary and historical allusions, in the wonders of the natural world, in philosophy, and - most of all - in that deep and boundless source of distilled feelings, human relationships."
- Jeanette Lynes, Author of "Archive of the Undressed"
"Agape: Heaven & Earth celebrates Bob MacKenzie's 50 year career writing and publishing poetry in Canada, featuring 148 selected poems from 1965 to the present."
Reviewer John Ambury writes:
"Bob MacKenzie is a highly respected poet and lyricist living in Kingston, Ontario. His immense talent, prolific output, and public readings have already earned him recognition well beyond his local area. Now, this excellent volume will firmly establish his ranking among the most outstanding contemporary poets in Canada.
"MacKenzie has published earlier collections, including collaborations. What makes "Agape: Heaven & Earth" so different and exceptional is its scope. Not a snapshot of a period in the writers development, this sweeping aggregation is a curated album of his whole poetic existence to date: a retrospective (for an artist almost too young to have one). It contains 148 poems, carefully chosen from the many hundreds he has written over 50 years - a full five decades. The album's pages are not in chronological order; they are arranged according to motifs, both spiritual and worldly. He observes that during the selection process: 'I discovered themes and resonances that I had never noticed before.' The result is a sumptuously-laid buffet of both simple and layered meanings, presented through a brilliant kaleidoscope of language.
"MacKenzie writes from both his heart and his mind, guided by how his inspirations spark, emerge, and take shape. One result is that his poems span the entire range of accessibility, from straightforward expressions to obscure imaginings. With apologies for neither - the former pieces are never trite, the latter ones never pretentious. Proficient with metre and rhyme as well as informal structure, he has an acute ear for what forms best express what ideas.
"Bob Mackenzie's poetry is insightful and emotional, intelligent and honest. And eclectic: his subjects are as wide-ranging as the entire experience of being sentient. He finds unique personal inspiration everywhere: in literary and historical allusions, in the wonders of the natural world, in philosophy, and - most of all - in that deep and boundless source of distilled feelings, human relationships."
200 pages, Paperback
Published January 19, 2015
1 person want to read
About the author
Bob MacKenzie
26 books53 followersBob MacKenzie has been a full-time self-supporting professional writer in both the commercial and literary fields since 1965. He began his career as a writer, editor, and producer in print and broadcast media while pursuing a literary career. Since the late-Eighties, Bob's concentrated on his literary career, writing short stories, novels, and poetry (including song lyrics), and performing words with music live on stage and in recordings.
Bob grew up in a photo studio in mid-century rural Alberta with artist parents. His father was a professional photographer and musician and his mother a photo technician, colourist, and painter. At a very young age, he was given his own camera. Ever since he's been shooting photographs and writing poems and stories. Raised in this environment, he quickly developed a natural affinity for photography and for the intricacies of language.
Bob's poetry has appeared in nearly 500 journals across North America and as far away as Great Britain, Australia, Greece, India, and Italy. Over the past half-century, Bob has published 20 volumes of poetry and prose-fiction and his writing has appeared in many anthologies around the world.
Bob has received numerous local and international awards for his writing as well as an Ontario Arts Council grant for literature, a Canada Council Grant for performance, and a Fellowship to attend the Summer Literary Seminars in Tbilisi, Georgia.
With the ensemble Poem de Terre, for eighteen years Bob's poetry has been spoken and sung live with original music and the group has released six albums.
Bob grew up in a photo studio in mid-century rural Alberta with artist parents. His father was a professional photographer and musician and his mother a photo technician, colourist, and painter. At a very young age, he was given his own camera. Ever since he's been shooting photographs and writing poems and stories. Raised in this environment, he quickly developed a natural affinity for photography and for the intricacies of language.
Bob's poetry has appeared in nearly 500 journals across North America and as far away as Great Britain, Australia, Greece, India, and Italy. Over the past half-century, Bob has published 20 volumes of poetry and prose-fiction and his writing has appeared in many anthologies around the world.
Bob has received numerous local and international awards for his writing as well as an Ontario Arts Council grant for literature, a Canada Council Grant for performance, and a Fellowship to attend the Summer Literary Seminars in Tbilisi, Georgia.
With the ensemble Poem de Terre, for eighteen years Bob's poetry has been spoken and sung live with original music and the group has released six albums.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 13, 2016
Exceptional! When a poet of MacKenzie's well-deserved status puts out a curated selection of a mere 150 or so poems, lovingly culled from the hundreds he has written over the 50 years of his career to date, it is well worth attention. This collection far exceeds even the best that one might expect from such a book.
Displaying 1 of 1 review