Ripping down half the trees (Volume 60) (The Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series) Paperback – June 1, 2021

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ McGill-Queen's University Press (June 1, 2021)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 120 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0228005469
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0228005469
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4.2 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.4 x 7.5 inches

Evan J offers a socially conscience and modern day book of poems.  From “Just over the mountain from Yaqui, Arizona”:  “Highway 66 traffics fortune / on jammed entry dirt drive / to the desert hotel in  Oatman. / Colonizer donkeys and gunslingers / compete for portraits of ministers.”  This poem authentically captures the Route 66 town of Oatman – “But every extra dollar / pocketed in this town finds pride / and re-emerges to paper / the hotel-restaurant walls.”  There is a realness here, but these poems say so much more.  His poems are worth taking in, one at a time.

How to make a skull from the head
of a bear delivered Tuesday
in a grocery bag to the afternoon

office meeting

Let it thaw
on a tree stump.
Help the scalp and fur
from bone
with a paring knife.
Evict the eyeballs
with your fingers
like seeds from a pumpkin.
Rest the jaw and
face flesh
atop an ant hill.
Now wait.

AUTHOR BIO

Evan J (he/him) is from Manitoba and now lives and writes in the town of Sioux Lookout, Ontario.