Penumbra Press
1982
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Cantos NorthHenry Beissel "EXPLORERS, EXPLOITERS, PAINTERS, POETS, have all made their private claims upon it (the Canadian northland), but this epic is the first to see it in its entirety, as a matrix which binds the whole together in a national mythology."
Before blindness struck the Isle of Chios there was Baffin Island and the tambour pulsebeat of a race of gods sterner than Olympus, before Homer could drink to the sea with his eyes full of the dark wine of his song the same sun was singing here up north in the pinched eyes of men against the cold. Bone rattle and lyre—two voices to the same heart, but the wind is harsher here and sculpts the frozen plains for one season only.... The vigour and cadence of this long poem are exceptional. Henry Beissel meets a fierce Canadian north and west head on, infusing his landscape with vastness and power... Beissel spins energetic music in several modes, takes on the native and the colonial experiences, plays with language, captures the physical world, and extends the imagination in a major work worthy of comparison to Hart Crane's masterpiece, The Bridge.
Henry BeisselAuthor Henry Beissel was born in 1929 in Cologne, Germany, and came to Canada in 1951 via London, England, where he studied philosophy. He tried his hand as warehouse packer, apple picker, door-to-door salesman and film maker. He resumed studies at U of T in English literature, writing his Master's thesis on Henry Vaughan. He is now a widely published poet, playwright, translator and editor with over thirty titles to his credit.
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