Wild Apples

Michael Pacey

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ISBN: 9781990770012
ITEM: PC0345 Category: Tags: , ,

Wild Apples

A Dialogue With Thoreau

  Author:   Michael Pacey    
  Publisher:  Pottersfield Press

The book is in the form of a dialogue between Thoreau and Pacey; each poem begins with an epigraph in the form of a quotation from Thoreau’s Journal – the particular passage (or sometimes passages) which inspired Pacey to write the poem that follows. Some of the pieces are based on his experiences, but re-shaped, expanded and altered; some are wholly imaginary responses to reading the entries in the Journal. There continues to be a great deal of interest in Thoreau these days, and this immersion into his vast diary provides a contemporary poet’s insight into the original work.

The poems use Thoreau’s entries as a springboard to the imagination with titles like “Suit of Invisibility,” “Rough and Smooth,” “Journal,” “Haycock,” “Rivers,” “Walking,” “Night Walks” and “Wild Apples.” Pacey also focuses on Thoreau’s daily activities: walking, harvesting the wild for apples in abandoned apple orchards, studying the creatures he sees in the woods, visiting his neighbours, talking to friends, and putting it all in his journal afterwards. There is also attention paid to the tools he requires as an amateur naturalist and professional writer: pencil and eraser, staff and compass, as well as his suit of invisibility. The poet recreates Thoreau’s encounters on these long hikes: with seeds and burrs and birds, with snakes, turtles and toadstools, with an old man and fellow collector of wild apples, with a corpse washed upon a beach, with a robin in a bar, with haycocks and herb gardens.

The strong connection to Thoreau is the passion for the natural world. Pacey, too, has a cabin in the woods he built for himself on the Nashwaak River, with no neighbours within a mile or two. In these poems, he also shares his own encounters with his wilder neighbours there by Buttermilk Falls.

Details and Specs
ISBN associated with this title: 9781990770012
Item PC0345
PublisherPottersfield Press
PublisherPottersfield Press
Published on October 1 2022
Language eng
Pages 86
Format Paperback
Dimensions8.5(in) x 5.5(in)
Shipping weight166(g)
Status ACTIVE TITLE

Michael Pacey has been a fixture of his hometown?s literary scene for more than fifty years, publishing his early poems in the Fiddlehead while still in high school, and his first collection with New Brunswick Chapbooks while a sophomore at UNB. He did his MFA in Creative Writing at UBC where he served as editor-in-chief of Prism International (1984-85). He continued his studies at UBC, earning an M.A. in English and a PhD specializing in Canadian literature; his doctoral thesis was a critical edition of the 727 letters between Desmond Pacey and Irving Layton. In recent years he?s produced two collections: The First Step and Electric Affinities. More than 120 of Michael?s poems have appeared in leading Canadian literary magazines, and his poems have twice been recognized in the Best Canadian Poems in English series.