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Title: |
Too Bad |
| Sub-title: |
Sketches Toward a Self-Portrait |
Search Result:
| By (author): |
Robert Kroetsch |
| ISBN10-13: |
0888645376 : 9780888645371 |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Size: |
228x133x11mm |
| Pages: |
112 |
| Weight: |
.180 Kg. |
| Published: |
University of Alberta Press - February 2010 |
| List Price: |
21.99 Pounds Sterling |
| Availability: |
Temporarily Out of Stock, more expected soon
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| Subjects: |
Poetry : Poetry by individual poets |
| With a prodigious body of innovative writing behind him, Robert Kroetsch turns to a starker lyrical mode in Too Bad: Sketches Toward a Self-Portrait. Oscillating between the many moods of a human heart that has lived through so much--from whimsy and scorn through desire, longing, lust, love, and serenity--these sketches mark a candid walk through the tortuous corridors of the poet's remembering, and exemplify the memorable dictum of an old teacher: "Every enduring poem was written today." "This book is not an autobiography. It is a gesture toward a self-portrait, which I take to be quite a different kettle of fish." --Robert Kroetsch Walking Backwards in a Blizzard It was part of our education, learning to lean on the wind, trusting the wind, learning to be the hypotenuse. Trigonometry, our teacher explained, is the study of angles. Late for school is a failure to connect two points with a straight line. The blizzard sealed our eyes, we said. We had to walk backwards in order to see-- our tracks in the snow, the shape of the wind. The past, we argued, must be a curved line. Walking backwards in the driven snow, we had arrived, by our calculations, early to class. About the Author Born in Heisler, Alberta, Robert Kroetsch published his first novel, But We are Exiles in 1965, and his book The Studhorse Man (1969) won the Governor General's Award for Fiction. He has steadily elaborated his indelible mark on Canadian writing ever since with his fiction, non-fiction, poetry, teaching, and scholarship. He lives in Leduc, Alberta. |
| Awards / Prizes: |
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AAUP Book, Jacket & Journal Show - Jackets and Covers
2011
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| Reviews: |
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Robert Kroetsch has spent his life writing about his favourite place - Alberta. On this week's Trailblazers, we sit down with the famed prairie author who received one of this year's Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist Awards.
View the full article here!
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Too Bad by Robert Kroetsch won an award for it's Jacket Design during the Association of American University Presses Book, Journal & Jacket Show.
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"Being a writer for most of his life, Leduc resident Robert Kroetsch doesn't aim for awards as a reward to completing a finished work, but instead to engage the reader and for the love of writing. Kroetsch's Too Bad: Sketches Toward a Self-Portrait is one of the five books in Alberta currently competing for the public's vote for one of the largest literary prizes offered in Alberta. 'I was surprised that a book of poems could make the list in a field of seventy competitors. Perhaps a lot more people are looking to poetry for lessons on love and joy in a troubled time or perhaps my sense of the bawdy was a big draw,' commented Kroetsch". Bobby Roy, Leduc Representative, [Full article at http://www.leducrep.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3163266]
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"Robert Kroetsch tenders profound reflections of an artist's life.... Rich in humour, Too Bad features sketches of the author and cameo appearances by Odysseus, Orpheus, Hokusai, Rousseau, Mark Twain, and Eli Mandel among others. The poet's task is to 'invent us, again'." Karl Jirgens, Canadian Literature Winter 2010
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“This collection--so saturated with allusions, geography and the inevitable passage of time--nonetheless contains a strong element of humour, which makes Too Bad, Kroetsch’s first volume of poetry since 2004, worth the wait and a pleasure not to be missed.” - Heather MacLeod, New Trail, Spring/Summer 2010
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"My favorite poet is the late Robert Kroetsch.... Fantastic reality was a great part of the writing of Robert Kroetsch, yet many of his poems are down home. His voice is often child-like and playful and in his last published work of poetry 'Too Bad: Sketches toward a Self-Portrait' his thoughts skip easily between childhood memories, memories of his travels, cynical confrontations with mindless media people, and contemplations on old age. His ability to see what's right before him and appreciate what it is reminds me of Robert Frost's view of the world.... Kroetsch lived a real life before becoming an eloquent, comical and fanciful writer of tall tales fashioned into literary art.... His life, literary pursuits, plain talk poems and his elder wisdom should inspire us to step out of ourselves and to value all that we take for granted." - Michelle Stirling-Anosh, May 14, 2012
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“These funny poems are serious. These serious poems are funny. Take your pick. Kroetsch has always been comfortable leading by example. These effervescent poems are a joy to read.” (Full review at http://michaeldennispoet.blogspot.ca/2013/08/too-bad-robert-kroetsch.html) Michael Dennis, August 7, 2013
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"Recognizing that memory is fiction, Kroetsch tells a lot of tales, from childhood through adulthood...but the portrait that evolves is multiple, protean, impossible to pin down. The poems range from comic-philosophic meditations on writing through slightly satiric comments on our all-too-human behaviour to lovely, deliberately and intelligently nostalgic memories.... [Kroetsch] keeps writing new fictions of self, and offers his readers in Too Bad one more brilliant addition to his oeuvre." Douglas Barbour, Edmonton Journal, February 28, 2010
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"Too Bad straddles the line between memoir and self-creation, replete with Kroetsch's trademark playfulness and ambiguity. In his long and successful literary career, [Kroetsch] has always resisted assignment to tidy category or transparent meaning.... Too Bad is true to form in its provocation and elusiveness.... Too Bad asks the reader to join in the act of self-creation. 'We connect the dots. That's kind of what I'm asking the reader to do. And they might connect in different ways.'" Geoff McMaster, ExpressNews, February 22, 2010 [Full article at: http://www.expressnews.ualberta.ca/print.cfm?id=10827]
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"...poet, novelist, critical theorist, ex-professorial old-age pensioner, mischievous trickster and certifiable genius Robert Kroetsch, perhaps one of a half-dozen - oh, okay, maybe eight, tops - distinguished word-workers permanently ensconced in the penthouse of lyrical perfectitude, especially when it comes to versifyin', particularly when it comes to his freshest collection, the bloody brilliant Too Bad. Too much. Simply way too much too good too great." Judith Fitzgerald, The Globe and Mail, May 7, 2010
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"Kroetsch transforms the everyday into poetic delight. He reads the paper and walks the dog, watches TV with ads for a 'wang stiffener,' scrapes the ice from his windshield en route to Starbucks for a latte. But modern life isn't simply empty kitsch. The references are as smart and well-suited as traditional poetic metaphors to nature and the classics. Refreshing is Kroetsch's dedication to the masculine story.... As a sketch towards a self-portrait Too Bad is expertly a window into a man's heart." Mike Landry, Telegraph-Journal, February 27, 2010
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"For some time, Kroetsch has deliberately twisted ideas of narrative and storytelling through poetry (and through fiction and essays, but we aren't discussing those here), saying the most in the least, and saying it sideways; saying in such a way that you don't always realize just what he's said, at first (if at all).... And how is it the best of Kroetsch's poetry, after so many years, still manages to bring out more questions than answers?" rob mclennan, Globe and Mail, April 30, 2010 [Full article at http://tinyurl.com/3x4r8ge]
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"This poet is a sage professor emeritus of resiliency, who redeems contemporary society with classical mythology, contemplates prairie and pirates, juxtaposes his ancestors. All this is within the life-long poem, for which he has been composing a new installment in his journey..." Anne Burke, Prairie Review, Spring 2010
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