“A truly great poet… Lane will deliver warts and
all, and you’ll be shocked and delighted at once.
You’ll find yourself thinking about issues you’d
rather push to the back of your mind.”
John Kinsella
Recipient of the Governor General’s Award
and many other major literary prizes, and
regarded by fellow writers and critics as “the best
poet of his generation”, Patrick Lane is one of
Canada’s foremost literary figures. Syllable of
Stone is his first book to be published in the UK
and contains work from nine of his poetry
collections, selected by Arc’s international editor,
John Kinsella, who also provides a thoughtful
and illuminating introduction to Lane’s work,
part of it in the form of a discussion with the
poet himself.
Intense, starkly honest, often disturbing, yet
also subtle, compassionate, even gentle, Lane’s
poems are always political, driven by personal
experience – and whether he’s writing about the
natural world or the human condition, they
make an indelible impression. Patrick Lane’s
long-overdue arrival on the British poetry scene
is an event to be applauded.
PATRICK LANE (www.patricklane.ca) was born in British Columbia, Canada, in 1939. He had no
formal education beyond high school, and worked at a variety of jobs, from common labourer, truck
driver, Cat skinner, chokerman, boxcar loader, Industrial First-Aid Man in the northern bush, to clerk
at a number of sawmills in the Interior of British Columbia, salesman, office manager, and an Industrial
Accountant. He began writing in earnest in the early 1960s, moving to Vancouver in early 1965 to work
and to join the new generation of artists and writers who were then coming of age. After further
travelling, he was appointed Writer-in-Residence at the University of Manitoba in 1978, where met his
third (and present) wife, the poet Lorna Crozier, with whom he runs various literary projects.
all, and you’ll be shocked and delighted at once.
You’ll find yourself thinking about issues you’d
rather push to the back of your mind.”
John Kinsella
Recipient of the Governor General’s Award
and many other major literary prizes, and
regarded by fellow writers and critics as “the best
poet of his generation”, Patrick Lane is one of
Canada’s foremost literary figures. Syllable of
Stone is his first book to be published in the UK
and contains work from nine of his poetry
collections, selected by Arc’s international editor,
John Kinsella, who also provides a thoughtful
and illuminating introduction to Lane’s work,
part of it in the form of a discussion with the
poet himself.
Intense, starkly honest, often disturbing, yet
also subtle, compassionate, even gentle, Lane’s
poems are always political, driven by personal
experience – and whether he’s writing about the
natural world or the human condition, they
make an indelible impression. Patrick Lane’s
long-overdue arrival on the British poetry scene
is an event to be applauded.
PATRICK LANE (www.patricklane.ca) was born in British Columbia, Canada, in 1939. He had no
formal education beyond high school, and worked at a variety of jobs, from common labourer, truck
driver, Cat skinner, chokerman, boxcar loader, Industrial First-Aid Man in the northern bush, to clerk
at a number of sawmills in the Interior of British Columbia, salesman, office manager, and an Industrial
Accountant. He began writing in earnest in the early 1960s, moving to Vancouver in early 1965 to work
and to join the new generation of artists and writers who were then coming of age. After further
travelling, he was appointed Writer-in-Residence at the University of Manitoba in 1978, where met his
third (and present) wife, the poet Lorna Crozier, with whom he runs various literary projects.