A House in Memory : Last Poems

A collection of unpublished poems by a distinguished poet and novelist. A collection of unpublished poems by a distinguished poet and novelist. Cover Copyright CONTENTS Foreword I – Late Poems (2015–2018) Waiting Untitled Country poems after Virgil’s Georgics “... also in rejoicing ...” On your 18th Night Words for All the Islands Three Lyrics Oedipus at the Crossroads The Nieces Rhymeless in Season Quatrains Quatre Études Midsummer High Up on the Top Floor Clockwise Dahlias Enduring Prophecy Thaw Improvisations Queen Anne’s Lace Macdonald Park: September, 2015 Polecat Song Spring May Rain Nausicaa Meets a Stranger Alien Newcomers You, as a Stranger Going Away Now Travel Documents for All Souls Envoi Varadero, 2017 Epilogues to Summer Hymn for No Singing O Summerland Prayer Approaching the Strait Dinner with Random Gods (les préludes, sonnet before creation) Migration in Orange The Pantheon Pacific Zinnias Imposed The Art History Brief Sonnet (des tristes esprits: sonnet from history) Farmscape A Shade-Sonnet Comes Imitations of Hafiz November footnote (moon) II – A Selection of Earlier Poems The Wrong Side of the Park Old Friends Getting to Missouri for Bill in April Vine Street At the Museum Untitled Travelling Summer Again Rosaceae Self-Portrait: as an Old House Damage Memorial Nocturne: John Field Aubade Gallus Absconditus Illuminations Kentville, October Two Views last lines 'the language of the waterway / the name / the train's route through bliss / to'When the poet and novelist David Helwig - a recipient of the Matt Cohen Prize for lifetime achievement and a member of the Order of Canada - died in October 2018, he left behind a substantial catalogue of unpublished work. A House in Memory, a selection of Helwig's last poems, was assembled by his daughter, Maggie. It shows an author still at the height of his powers, creating work in complex formal structures, contemplating mortality, memory, and the landscape of his adopted home of Prince Edward Island, and paying tribute to his literary predecessors. The collection also includes unpublished poems from earlier in Helwig's career. Ranging widely through time, space, and literary tradition, A House in Memory features some deeply personal poems. As Maggie Helwig says of her father,'he could not cease to be a poet as long as he had breath in this world. "A House in Memory, a selection of Helwig's last poems, was assembled by his daughter, Maggie. It shows an author still at the height of his powers, creating work in complex formal structures, contemplating mortality, memory, and the landscape of his adopted home of Prince Edward Island, and paying tribute to his literary predecessors. The collection also includes unpublished poems from earlier in Helwig's career."-- Provided by publisher