Stones to Harvest/Escarmouches de la Chair, a lyrical cycle of 47 poems, sets out the four seasons in remarkable and very concrete images drawn from the flora and fauna of Eastern Ontario and Southern Quebec, where Beissel lived and worked. He explores these landscapes with remarkable specificity, though his approach is universal in scope and embodied in a language that consistently aspires to song. A bilingual French/English edition.
In What If Zen Gardens, Henry Beissel, often considered the master of the long poem, turns to the time-honoured tradition of the haiku to help bring to light what he calls "the world's hidden affairs." Included in the collection are a series of black-and-white illustrations by Arlette Francière, themselves polished gems that highlight, reflect and enhance the poems.
Epic in scope, lyrical in its celebration of nature, frequently uncompromising in its portrayal of human violence and greed, and rich in the keenly observed details --colours, sounds, rhythms, scents, and voices -- that constitute this place we call our home and native land, Cantos North sings an alternate history, a myth of place, not origins, that cradles us all.
When Africa Calls Uhuru is a dramatic poem in search of what it means to be human. Henry Beissel takes the reader to the Rift Valley in Kenya where it is believed the evolution of Homo sapiens largely took place. The narrative unfolds in a dialogue between nature, science and history, three voices that evoke the fauna and flora of Africa and conjure up the history of its colonization. Ultimately, the poem celebrates today's liberation of the 'dark' continent, arguing that since all humanity was born there, all people are brothers and sisters, whatever the colour of their skin. "Dance, my beloved / Africa," the poet rejoices, "you are free / to choose freedom now!"
These poems take the reader on a mind-blowing journey across the known micro- and macrocosms to the extreme outer edges of space and time. The counter-intuitive insights of modern science here become reality as we are led to question the representations of our senses. Quantum physics and cosmic relativity, captured in the intimacy of the prevailing sonnet form, create a dynamic challenging the reader to reaffirm the human world in the face of the unknowable.
This collection is truly global in scope and universal in perspective. From a bog near Ottawa to the lagoons of Venice, from a chamber concert in an Ontario barn to a blind beggar in Mexico, from the infinities of interstellar space to the birth of a grandson -- Henry Beissel celebrates the world in all its richness, mysteries and ecstasies, without ever flinching from its contradictions and torments, and offers exciting sightlines on the human condition.