Book Review – Dirty Snow by Tom Wayman
Dirty Snow
by Tom Wayman
“Dreams, some say, are where what we suppress in our waking existence finds expression. How has the everyday silence wrapped around the AfghanWar affected Canada’s dreams?
“Even in the profound peace of night at my country home, dreams arise that try to speak to me, but in a language I do not always comprehend…” Tom Wayman, introducing his poem “Processions” Dirty Snow explores Wayman’s view that Canada’s military intervention in a civil war between two odious sets of combatants has degraded Canadians’ quality of life by, among other means, the conflict’s relentless absorption of public funds in pursuit of dubious ends. Wayman is also concerned with echoes of the Afghan War in the personal sphere, particularly the war’s effect on the natural world in the mountain valleys of southeastern BC where the author makes his home. This collection reveals how life in wartime taints our perception of the landscape, and how the natural cycles provide solace despite the moral and economic quagmires in which the inhabitants of the twenty-first century are attempting to conduct their lives. From the drone of bagpipes on Kandahar Airfield to jet bombers dropping Canadian schools and hospitals on far-flung Afghan villages, Wayman is a master of potent imagery. He approaches his subject with a voice that is passionate and dark, all interwoven with prose introductions, allowing readers the sense that they are present at one ofWayman’s engaging public readings. Tom Wayman received his MFA in English and writing at the University of California in Irvine and has been awarded the Canadian Authors’ Association medal for poetry, the AJ.M Smith Prize for distinguished achievement in Canadian poetry and first prize in the USA Bicentennial PoetryAwards competition. His poetry has been published in literary magazines across the world, including The Paris Review, Saturday Night, The Iowa Review, The Hudson Review and Canadian Forum. He has been a writer-in-residence at the University of Toronto, and a professor at the University of Calgary. He has also published two books of short stories, and most recently a novel, Woodstock Rising (2009). Dirty Snow is his eighteenth book of poems.
This review volume is available free from the News Office #3 4448 50th Avenue Northern Fort Nelson.
First-come-first-served.
Follow
Recent Comments