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list price: $16.95
edition:Paperback
category: Poetry
published: Jan 1993
ISBN:9781550170658
publisher: Harbour Publishing Co. Ltd.

Ghost in the Gears

by Howard White

tagged: canadian
Description

This collection of poems is steeped in the west coast tradition of storytelling and mythmaking, a tradition Howard White has nurtured for two decades. The poems are as real, down-to-earth and funny as White's award-winning prose.

He admits to having a messy yard, describes city street crazies and the late-night "undermind," teaches his boys how to hammer, and sits down to dinner with fancy people. He takes the trouble to figure out that if Canada's unemployed people were laid head to toe, they'd stretch from Vancouver to Winnipeg. His poems are rich with west coast denizens-loggers, fishermen, executives and industrialists, slugs, ravens, loons, and even Old Scabby Mackay, who got his nickname for breaking one strike in 1937 and who says, "We Canadians, we gotta be the stupidest damn race of people that ever walked."

"His work is as refreshing, as spirited and melodious as a vibrant April shower. White's style is always crisp, fresh and ebullient."
-Virginia Aulin, Vancouver Sun

"Howard White is a pure delight to read."
-George Melnyk, Calgary Herald

"White's is a major coastal voice. . . the best of his work is about seeing."
-Charles Lillard, Victoria Times-Colonist

About the Author

Howard White was raised in a series of camps and settlements on the BC coast and never got over it. He is still to be found stuck barnacle-like to the shore at Pender Harbour, BC. He started Raincoast Chronicles and Harbour Publishing in the early 1970s and his own books include A Hard Man to Beat, Spilsbury’s Coast, The Accidental Airline, Writing in the Rain, The Sunshine Coast and A Mysterious Humming Noise (Anvil, 2019). In 2000, he completed a ten-year project, The Encyclopedia of British Columbia. He has been awarded the Order of BC, the Canadian Historical Association’s Career Award for Regional History, the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, the Jim Douglas Publisher of the Year Award and a Honorary Doctorate of Laws Degree from the University of Victoria. In 2007, White was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Awards
  • Short-listed, Dorothy Livesay BC Book Prize
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