Gift Horse

Overview

Poems of considerable craft and vision

Largely written following a near-fatal medical emergency, this stirring collection of poetry offers the story of a young man whose gratitude at being alive is undercut by his own confusion and ambivalence. Brandishing a newly acute sense of mortality, the author emerges as a stroller of the Atlantic, stalked by terrifying sea legends, death-steeped domesticity, and the extinct Newfoundland wolf. Understated, sinister, and unsettling, this series of poems is an unforgettable offering from a budding master of the craft.

Reviews

"Mark Callanan's voice is distinctive and confident, funny, grave, occasionally visionary, and his technical gifts are multifold." —Books in Canada

"Callanan has talent to burn, whether producing his seascapes or nature studies or human-subject poems. His eye is exact, his discipline imagist." —George Elliott Clarke, award-winning poet, Whylah Falls

Author Biography

Mark Callanan is the author of the poetry collections Scarecrow and Sea Legend, which won the bpNichol Chapbook Award. He lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland.