Jon Whyte: Mind over Mountains

by Harry Vandervlist (editor), Harry Vandervlist (Editor), Myrna Kostash (Foreword)

" Post-modernism was nice while it lasted, I believe. Thank goodness it's over. "

So wrote Jon Whyte, a contrarian and poet ahead of his time.
From the late 1960s to his untimely death in 1992, Banff's Jon Whyte was a guiding spirit among those who loved the arts and the Rockies. Though variously a filmmaker, bookseller, publisher, local historian, museum-keeper, critic and columnist, Jon Whyte was always and most fundamentally a poet.
Jon Mind Over Mountains traces his poetic career from his early years as part of Edmonton's fertile 1960s literary community, through his acclaimed 1982 poem Henry Kelsey , to Fells of Brightness , his visionary evocation of the "Shining Mountains."
Complemented with photographs and artwork reproductions, Jon Mind Over Mountains introduces previously unpublished work along with his best-known writings and includes a foreword by longtime friend and writer Myrna Kostash .

166 pages, Hardcover

First published September 10, 2000

Reviews

[MR STEPHEN · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much of it feels obscure and self-consciously poetic - and then suddenly, something like Neptuak; searingly beautiful. Not the easiest poet but worth the work.