Since the late 1980s, Bartlett has become one of Canada's leading poets, and the time is ripe for volume of his best work. For "Wanting the Day: Selected Poems," he has chosen the most dramatic poems from six earlier volumes. From the beginning of his career, Brian Bartlett's poetry has been refined and sensual, far-reaching and grounded.
In this new collection, Bartlett's vision is distilled, and new combinations throw the insights of three decades into high relief. With a passion for the physical rooted in the spiritual, his poems combine seemingly discordant ideas and facts with emotion in a minimum of narrative space. Whether writing about a jazz drummer or a foot-doctor, a run-down hotel or an Adirondack mountain, his gift for language and insight brings into the reader's consciousness visions never before seen, thoughts and feelings never before recognized.
Favourites in the collection include "Cousin Gifts," a small-scale, large-spirited Christmas poem; the sequence "Underwater Carpentry," winner of a "Malahat Review" Long Poem prize; and "Foot-doctor for the Homeless," winner of the Petra Kenney Award competition. "Wanting the Day" has been published simultaneously in the UK by Peterloo Poets Society.