Overview

A debut poetry collection, both lyrical and surprisingly playful, about overcoming a harsh evangelical upbringing and seeking consolation from the beauty of the natural world. This collection by the author of three books of nonfiction takes readers into one man's struggle to escape the corrosive effects of a punishing religion. We meet the small, frightened boy afraid of hell-fire and eternal guilt, and decades later, the man kicking free of the habit of self-excoriation. There is humour in the observation of the antics of birds, especially magpies and other corvids, and profound humility in the struggle to resist a confining culture. Magpie, I love you more for your flight and strut than for your squawk, but can't vilify a creature ten times tougher than I am and a hell of a lot more handsome. We walk with the poet-as-flaneur through neighbourhoods and along the river in a small prairie city, observing the incongruities, absurdities, and startling images and sounds of city life. And as the mystic who believes in something far beyond himself, so the beetle he sees on a path is ""a little Buddha,"" and the wind and the flowing river are ""irresistible forces,"" while a pine teaches him ""how you move / without going / anywhere.""

Full Product Details

9781771872706

Table of Contents

Reviews

Past Praise: ""... the mundane made keenly relevant and the divine fully believable and grounded. Consider it narrative poetry, a collection of reflections, a series of intimate snapshots -- and find the soul of a poet and a friend within its pages."" ?Pacific Rim Review of Books, on Backwater Mystic Blues Past Praise: ""Bindy's Moon is exquisitely rendered. Ratzlaff's personal reflections deploy the delicate tuning of an inquisitive mind, the sober bell of experience, and the deft use of language to grapple with life's complexities and transcendent potentials."" -- Saskatchewan Book Awards Past Praise: ""A keenly detailed, often lyrical exploration of love, loss, and courage."" -- Saskatchewan Writers' Guild John V. Hicks Long Manuscript Awards on Bindy's Moon

Author Information

Lloyd Ratzlaff is a former minister, counsellor, and university lecturer who has authored three books of literary nonfiction and edited an anthology of seniors' writings and a children's book. He was a finalist for three Saskatchewan Book Awards, won two Saskatchewan Writers Guild literary nonfiction awards, and served on the boards of several writing organizations. He was a columnist for Prairie Messenger Catholic Journal through its last nineteen years of publication, and taught writing classes for READ Saskatoon, the Western Development Museum, and the University of Saskatchewan's Certificate of Art and Design program. Walking Upstream is his first poetry collection. He lives in Saskatoon.

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