Sex, booze, war and wordplay collide loquaciously in Err, the latest collection from innovative and accomplished poet Shane Rhodes. Equally amusing and stunning with his joyful manipulation of language and his stark portrayals of disease and oppression, Rhodes tackles everything from AIDS to martinis with style, wit and clarity. The book is divided into four themed sections, each of which focuses on a different sphere of life and creativity. "Spirits" amends the current scarcity of drinking poems with humourous, effervescent musings, whereas "Bodies" looks at the ravages of sex, disease and death. "The Cloud Chamber" traces the breakdown of language and sound into poems that interrogate letters, phonemes and jargon, while "Dark Matter" investigates new ways of writing and thinking about poetry.A master of alliteration, allusion, rhyme and rhythm, Rhodes shakes up a verbal cocktail of vibrant musicality that appeals to the imagination and remains in the memory. This distinctive collection makes for delightful, unusual and engaging reading.

Err (Blewointment Books)

Literature & Fiction

Rhodes, Shane

Poetry

Blewointment

One of the first lines of X, Shane Rhodes' sixth book of poetry, is a warning: "this book of verse demands more of verse, this book demands perversity." He goes on to write: "This book is about where I live, a place still settling, still making the land--law by law, arrest by arrest, jail by jail--its own snow blown" Heed this warning. In X, Rhodes takes poetry from the comfortable land of the expected to places it has seldom been. Writing through the detritus of Canada's colonization and settlement, Rhodes writes poems to and with Canada's original documents of finding and keeping. He writes a poem to each of the eleven numbered treaties (the Post Confederation Treaties between many of Canada's First Nations and the Queen of England)--he writes to the fonts he finds in Treaty 5, the river he finds in Treaty 6, and the chemicals he finds in Treaty 8. Rhodes writes poems to and with the Indian Act. Beyond the treaties, Rhodes writes formal poetry using Indian status registration forms. He writes to the memory of Oka. He writes to the Government of Canada's Apology for the Indian Residential School System. He writes to the procreating beavers he finds in the Royal Charter of the Hudson Bay Company. X culminates in "White Noise," a long poem grown from Canada's collective rants, threats, cries and shouts in response to the Idle No More protests and the hunger strike of Chief Theresa Spence. Through out the book, Rhodes surprises with what poetry and art can actually do with the seemingly unsalvageable and un-poetic that surrounds us. The design of X is also exhilarating. Not only is the book reversible--it must be read in two directions--but every page bursts with design, interference and thought. X sings a new national anthem for Canada, an anthem stripped of patriotic fervor that truly sings of the past many would rather forget and the current state of Indigenous/settler race relations in Canada, an anthem fit for "a land held by therefores, herebys and hereinafters."

Juxtaposing the seemingly benign names of Europeans that permeate our geographies with the details of their so-called discoveries and conquests, Dead White Men turns ideas of exploration, discovery, finding and keeping back upon themselves. Engaging with exploration and scientific texts from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries  texts wrapped up in the history and ongoing present of colonization  this collection builds a fascinating poetry of memory out of histories that are largely forgotten.A provocative and galvanizing read … Riveting and dazzling invention is visible on almost every page: fonts shift size, language cascades and cleaves, and images disrupt order. Dead White Men should be widely read and taught.’ Eduardo C. Corral, author of Slow LightningDead White Men is not only a searing indictment of colonialism but also a painful reminder of the violence that underpins the logic of exploration. Each poem strikes at the heart of the issue: there are often unarticulated, unacknowledged Indigenous presences here that have been flattened over by the lies and mirages of empty landscapes. Dead White Men is a stinging and difficult journey, and one that continues to remind us that stolen land has always been the most pressing concern for Indigenous peoples and settlers. This is an absolutely essential book.’ Jordan Abel, author of InjunShane Rhodes is the author of five books of poetry, and has won awards including an Alberta Book Award and the National Magazine Gold Award for poetry. He lives in Ottawa, Ontario.

Dead White Men

Coach House Books

Toad Tales

Wrecking Ball Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Rhodes, Shane. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Rhodes, Shane

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Rhodes, Shane. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Err (Blewointment Books)

X

Dead White Men

Toad Tales