Fetishes of the Floating World

by Don Domanski

Governor General's Award-winning poet Don Domanski's posthumous last collection once again melds perception-expanding environmental poetry and metaphysics into a seamless, moving lyric whole. Fetishes of the Floating World continues Don's lifelong exploration of mystical ecology. It is an invitation to experience the sacred dimensions of what-is and to become more intimate with the strangeness that haunts our lively, changeable world. Here is a spirituality that doesn't turn its back on the material and immerses us in earthly being. The sustained apprehension of deep time underlies every moment of this work; every moment is held up against that more-than-human span and is relinquished to it. Domanski's full-bodied, incantatory language will penetrate your very marrow, calling you out of yourself to testify to the world's "inclement graces." "Domanski's poems are intimate, but intimate on a grand scale. As far as I am concerned, there is no better poet writing in English." - Mark Strand on All Our Wonder Unavenged

Genres: Poetry

92 pages, Paperback

Published October 15, 2021

About the author

Don Domanski was born and raised on Cape Breton Island and now lives in Halifax. He has published eight books of poetry, two of which were short-listed for the Governor General’s Award, and in 1999 he won the Canadian Literary Award for Poetry. Published and reviewed internationally, his work has been translated into Czech, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Reviews

[Andrew Sare · Rating 3 out of 5]

To read of speculations on one's existence, one's place in the universe, and death in a posthumous work makes a mark.

[Brittany · Rating 4 out of 5]

I searched 'An Artist of the Floating World' on my library's website and this book showed up in the results. With its title being what it is, I just had to read it, and I can't say I'm disappointed.

Did I understand it all? No.
Is it absolutely beautiful poetry? Yes.

[Alexia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I took a picture of this book in my local bookstore on April 16th 2023 and finally bought it about a month and a half ago.

One of the best books I’ve read in a while and certainly one of the best poetry collections I’ve read. Like a mix of Walt Whitman and Gwendolyn Macewan to me. I am only sad this was published posthumously as I now know I may only read what Domanski has already published. I inhaled this. Everything from the gold embossed cover to the texture of the pages and every word in between is perfection. I feel like this is something I will find my way back to reread and will only enjoy it more. I love Canadian authors. What a gem.

“Rest child hush breathe deeply everything is going to hurt”

[Alex Kwong! · Rating 5 out of 5]

Domanski’s posthumous anthology is a suitably haunting and wondrous exploration of the unseeable and the mystic. There is a specific humility borne from the scope of geological deep time. I think I understand why the first church pews were built from Yew. I wish I could ask a rock what it remembers. I wish I could remember as much.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked it.

[bailzzz · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all-time favourite books of poetry; wrapped in spider webs, illuminated by the moonlight, a breeze in the summer night.

[Sunblinding · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spinozan ecognosis in verse. Deus, sive natura; some of the most affecting and profound ecological poetry I’ve come across.

[Jenny Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will always be reading this book - proof the poet lives on, right here, inside the words and their worlds. So very grateful for and humbled by these poems.