[McKay's] exuberantly musical and shrewd poems are ecological in the
fullest sense of the word: they seek to elucidate our relationships with
our fragile dwelling places both on the earth and in our own skins.
--New York Times Book Review
An extraordinary collection of poems from Griffin Poetry Prize winner
Don McKay.
Old joke: "What's the difference between a lurch and a dance step?"
"I don't know."
"I didn't think so. Let's sit down."
These poems are what happens when you stay out on the dance floor
instead, dancing the staggers. The full moon rises from the ocean and
you lurch with astonishment that we live on a rocky sphere whirling in
space. Or the bird in your hand--a pipit or a storm petrel--conveys the
exquisite frailty of existence. And there's the complex of lurches as we
contemplate our complicity in the sixth mass extinction.
Throughout Lurch, language dances its ardent incompetence as a
translator of "the profane wonders of the wilderness," whether manifest
as Balsam Fir, Catbirds, the extinct Eskimo Curlew, or the ever-present
Cosmic Microwave Background.
What is the difference between a love song and an elegy?
We live between eroding raindrops
and accelerating clocks. The piano
lifts its lid to show its wire-and-hammer
heart.
