In Circles

In Circles is the follow-up publication to the author’s widely-acclaimed parody novel, The Last Smoker on Earth and the End of Literature [Friesen Press, Vancouver, 2021]. The poems were composed in 40 countries around the world. The collection is occasionally profound, sometimes mischievous, but essentially humorous. The author makes a thematic distinction between poems that are obviously whimsical (Nosepicker, Mortal); the misery of despondency (Loner and a bar-room mirror); a ‘recitation-tribute’ to his father growing-up in the West of Ireland (Primrose Hill) and the few such as Paroxysm of Fear that are deeply intense, personal and penetrating. He felt it necessary to include these calamitous images in the vital reality and vulnerability of our times - in a sobriety of our concomitant need for diversion.

In Circles is as much a series of standalone vignettes as it is a book of poems. It makes free use of wordplay, euphemism and sound while experimenting with the illustrative (eyecatching) effects of using icons to coax a vivid curiosity in an enlivening of the genre.