Porcupinity of the Stars

Gary Barwin is a poet, fiction writer, composer and performer. His music and writing have been performed and broadcast in Canada, the U.S. and Europe. His publications include poetry: Outside the Hat, Raising Eyebrows, Servants of Dust, anus porcupine eyebrow and frogments from the frag pool (with derek beaulieu); and fiction: Doctor Weep and other Strange Teeth, Big Red Baby and The Mud Game (a novel with Stuart Ross). Forthcoming books include The Obvious Flap (with Gregory Betts) and Kafka Franzlations: A Guide to the Imaginary Parables (with Hugh Thomas and Craig Conley). He was the co-winner of the 2009 bpNichol chapbook award for Inverting the Deer and was a recipient of the K. M. Hunter Foundation Artist award. He edits supernova tadpole editions for Paper Kite Press. Barwin is also the author of several books for kids, including Seeing Stars, which was nominated for a CLA YA Book of the Year and an Arthur Ellis Award. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario, with his wife and three children, and online at garybarwin.com.

'Between the freaky, funny filmmaker Guy Maddin and author Gary Barwin, Canada is producing some of the most innovative creative works of our time.' -- Utne Reader 'Gary Barwin delivers surreal, parabolic, even mythic poems, the denseness of which opens up to sparkle with an alluring beauty, as in the image conjured by the book's title ... The poems in Porcupinity are the result of an unencumbered imagination, tinted by humour, intelligence and pathos.' -- Canadian Literature 'Barwin brings a delightfully refreshing reality to the page. He teaches us to see in new ways, even sometimes with the eyes of a child. In his world, words are building blocks. He uses them to erect monuments both to the mundane and to the maniacal.' Prairie Fire Review of Books 'Among contemporary poets, Barwin stands out as exceptional for his ability to plunder the synesthetic splendor of words. His poems seem to lift from the printed page and nosedive into other sensory dimensions. They are at once so spacious, intensely visual, and alert to sound that it's possible to become convinced words are endowed with flavors and smells--exotic, fragrant candies that stain the tongue with color.' -- ForeWord 'Few books of poetry in recent decades have so inventively and insightfully explored how intimately our existence is rooted in a foundation of both death and wonder.' -- Gabriel Gudding, author of Rhode Island Notebook 'Gary Barwin likes to drive language through the guard rails and into oncoming traffic.' -- Hamilton Spectator