In A Serious Call, Governor General's Award-winner Don Coles presents a collection of moments suspended in time: a line of poetry, forgotten for years and remembered as often; a photograph cut out of a 1942 newspaper that saves its subjects not from death but from oblivion; a fond memory of a bookshop in Southwark, where books feed a love of literature and a life-long friendship. In a deceptively plainspoken style enhanced by his signature precision, Coles's contemplation of everyday moments and objects reveals not only the power of memory, but also the innermost fears and longings of the human spirit.