In this Book
- Certain Details: The Poetry of Nelson Ball
- Book
- 2017
- Published by: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
- Series: Laurier Poetry
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Nelson Ball has had a significant impact on contemporary Canadian poetry not only as a poet but as an editor, with his Weed/Flower Press in the 1960s and 70s. Certain Details provides a major overview of the breadth and many paths of Ball’s poetry over six decades. This selection of his work includes his trademark minimalist poems in addition to longer works and sequences; it spans nature poems, homages, meditations, narratives, found poems, and visual poems. The book contains selections from all of Ball’s major collections as well as works that have previously appeared only in chapbook or ephemeral form.
In a generous and thoughtful afterword, and for the first time in print, Ball discusses his processes, influences, and aesthetics. The book is introduced by editor and poet Stuart Ross, who offers a personal entry point into Nelson Ball’s extraordinary oeuvre.
Table of Contents
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- Title Page, Copyright
- pp. i-iv
- Table of Contents
- pp. v-x
- Biographical
- pp. xiii-xiv
- From With Issa: Poems 1964–1971 (1991)
- Night Window
- p. 1
- Into & Out Of
- p. 4
- Force Movements
- pp. 5-7
- Preference
- p. 8
- Snow-Boots
- p. 9
- Writing A Poem
- p. 10
- Points Of Attention
- p. 11
- From The Concrete Air [1971–1972] (1996)
- Côte D’Azur
- p. 13
- Poem For Your Bum
- p. 14
- From Under The Porch
- p. 15
- Huron County: Sunset
- p. 15
- The Concrete Air
- p. 17
- Toward Spring
- p. 20
- From Bird Tracks on Hard Snow (1994)
- The Spruce
- p. 22
- Night Sound
- p. 22
- To Barbara
- p. 23
- The Primaries
- p. 26
- October 8th
- p. 27
- From Almost Spring (1999)
- March 20th
- p. 29
- Early Thaw
- p. 30
- Black Cloud
- p. 31
- Late Afternoon
- p. 32
- Fallen Trees
- p. 34
- Grasshopper
- p. 35
- From At the Edge of the Frog Pond (2004)
- Scrub Cedar
- p. 37
- Power Blackout
- p. 38
- In Silence
- p. 38
- In Marked Contrast
- p. 39
- Without Prejudice
- p. 40
- Knocked Out
- p. 42
- First Snow
- p. 42
- The Only Sound
- p. 44
- From In This Thin Rain (2012)
- Anti-Gothic
- p. 45
- Dead Flies
- p. 46
- After The Rain
- p. 47
- On The River
- p. 48
- The Old House
- p. 48
- Bannister Lake
- p. 51
- Snowdrifts
- p. 51
- What Remain
- p. 52
- Farm Market Reports
- p. 53
- From Some Mornings (2014)
- Some Mornings
- p. 54
- Sensory Perception
- p. 56
- The Squirrel
- p. 56
- My Caffeine
- p. 57
- Point Of View
- p. 60
- At The Farmhouse
- p. 60
- At The Ponds
- pp. 61-62
- Uncollected Poems
- May 23: Sunset
- p. 64
- In The Orchard
- p. 65
- A Final Question
- p. 66
- U.S. Foreign Aid
- p. 69
- The Real Story
- p. 69
- Catherine Visits
- p. 70
- L’Abbaye De Sénanque
- p. 71
- Low Moon With Loon
- p. 72
- Light Line
- p. 73
- Storm Warning
- p. 74
- Acknowledgements
- pp. 83-86
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