All New Animal Acts: Essays, Stretchers, Poems

by Don McKay

Collecting his recent essays with a few new poems and ‘stretchers’, Don McKay builds upon his decades-long exploration of poetry and its relationship to the world. Whether he’s paying tribute to poets Margaret Avison and Joanne Page, cracking wise about the impropriety of the F-word interrupting a consonant cluster, contemplating our relationship to the obscure worlds of fossils and lichens, or laying bare his own staggering grief, McKay’s wily notion of poetry resists the anthropoid urge to name or map with certainty the things we pursue, reinvigorating our capacity for wonder.

144 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2020

About the author

Don McKay is an award-winning Canadian poet, editor, and educator.

McKay was educated at the University of Western Ontario and the University of Wales, where he earned his PhD in 1971. He taught creative writing and English for 27 years in universities including the University of Western Ontario and the University of New Brunswick.

In June 2007, he won the Griffin Poetry Prize for Strike/Slip (2006). He is the co-founder and manuscript reader for Brick Books, one of Canada's leading poetry presses, and was editor of the literary journal The Fiddlehead from 1991-96.

In 2008, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada.[2]

Reviews

[Jenny Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank goodness for Don McKay and the Thinking and Singing poets. Such important, compassionate, compelling and beautiful work. Thank you!