Description: "The book unfolds in seven short sections that probe such topics as the crucial value of childhood; a human person's development through maturity and age; the perennially avant-garde nature of great poetry no matter what time and place; and poetry's inherent involvement with hope and creativity, life and feeling, freedom and love. Great Silent Ballad also reprises Moritz's longstanding celebration of common human conversation, the apex of which (he argues convincingly) is what we call "poetry"--meaning not just the art of verse, but our total access to the goodness of natural existence."--
Brief description:
A.F. MORITZ's most recent books from House of Anansi Press are Great Silent Ballad (2024), As Far as You Know (2020) and The Sparrow: Selected Poems (2018). Three of his books have been finalists for the Governor General's Award; The Sentinel won the Griffin Poetry Prize. His work overall has received the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Award in Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and other recognitions. A.F. Moritz was Poet Laureate of Toronto from 2019 to 2023.
Review Quotes:
"In Great Silent Ballad there is a persistent sense of a doorway opening before us, welcoming us to pass through." -- Traces Journal