The Home Place: Essays on Robert Kroetsch's Poetry - Tapa blanda

"Cooley makes important use of the evolution of some of the major poems by reference to the manuscripts and typescripts of drafts and makes an especially fruitful case for Seed Catalogue." -- Anne Burke Prairie Journal of Canadian Literature "...[The Home Place] builds a magnificent bridge across the coulee between writer and reader... Comprehensive and intense, The Home Place unpacks Kroetsch's long poems The Ledger, Seed Catalogue and The Sad Phoenician. It dives into the very marrow of those works and accomplishes brilliant and suggestive explorations of the feints and allusions that make them great... Cooley and Kroetsch partner one another, dance with the words they both love and respect." -- Aritha van Herk Alberta Views '"Dennis Cooley has written a remarkable monograph on Robert Kroetsch that focuses primarily on a handful of his books of long poems.Cooley weaves an astute criticism of Kroetsch's writing with details of Kroetsch's private life, with an enquiry into being a writer, and with covering (and responding to) a great deal of previous Kroetsch scholarship...making for an acute study that covers an enormous critical range." [Full review at http://www.prairiefire.ca/the-home-place-essays-on-robert-kroetschs-poetry/] -- Nicole Markotic Prairie Fire "Cooley paints Kroetsch (1927-2011) as a Canadian Weldon Kees, as a man well known in certain circles as a celebrated writer, effuse in his friendships yet wandering much of his life and, like Odysseus, never quite sure of home... Kroetsch had a passion for lists, for cataloging, his language catapulting emotion like the language of Gertrude Stein. One can read into his work the influence of Walt Whitman and Mark Twain, language without sentiment, crisp lines without meandering. Kroetsch's language pulls readers into his world, where the heroes spend their time alone, repeating words, creating new meanings. Cooley's collection reflects on the enigma of Kroetsch and the life of a poet in the 20th century. Recommended." -- K. Gale Choice Magazine

"He wants to sit and visit at the kitchen table, and he can hardly wait to get on the road again." -From Chapter 1 Robert Kroetsch, one of Canada's most important writers, was a fierce regionalist with a porous yet resilient sense of "home." Although his criticism and fiction have received extensive attention, his poetry remains underexplored. This exuberantly polyvocal text, insightfully written by dennis cooley-who knew Kroetsch and worked with him for decades-seeks to correct that imbalance. The Home Place offers a dazzling, playful, and intellectually complex conversation drawing together personal recollections, Kroetsch's archival materials, and the international body of Kroetsch scholarship. For literary scholars and anyone who appreciates Canadian literature, The Home Place will represent the standard critical evaluation of Kroetsch's poetry for years to come.