Local News
Glen Downie
April 2011
80 pages | ISBN 978-1-894987-52-3
Local News walks us through the familiar spaces in our homes and lives and shows them to us in a new, if slanted, light. Whether meandering the aisles of the neighbourhood drugstore or digging through the tool shed out back, Downie shows a vivid and alive world that is not soon to be forgotten.
Articles
Have nothing to read? From poetry to fiction, 2011 produced more than a few titles you'll want to devour (Quentin Mills-Fenn, Uptown Magazine, 12/29/2011).
Quentin Mills-Fenn talks about his favourite books of 2011. "He wrote my favourite poem of the year, about a hallway."
Glen Downie reads Local News at York (Chris Cornish, YFile, 6/12/2011).
Reviews
Poetry (Miranda Pearson, Event: Poetry and Prose, 06/01/2012)
“This is a fascinating collection – funny, dark, conflicted. It shines a merciless light on how we hoard .... But these poems are also compassionate and imaginative, deeply humane, political and brave in their protest.”
Inspiration is (literally) everywhere (Quentin Mills-Fenn, Uptown Magazine 10/20/2011).
"The new book contains poems about the most ordinary places and things, with titles such as 'Clothes Closet,' 'Ladder,' and 'Basement.' Downie observes carefully, and almost perceives feelings from his inanimate subjects. Thus 'Hallway,' accepts indifference. 'But just, dreams the hallway, hold the party, spill the wine on me.'"
Poets in Profile: Glen Downie (Erin Knight, Open Book Toronto, 4/22/2011).
“Shoe store to sawdust shop, fork to clothes closet to plumb bob — Glen Downie's Local News…examines these mundane spaces and objects with an inquisitiveness and generosity that gives us a new perspective on the world we build our lives around.”
Interviews
Poets in Profile: Glen Downie (Erin Knight, Open Book Toronto, 4/22/2011).
"Shoe store to sawdust shop, fork to clothes closet to plumb bob — Glen Downie's Local News…examines these mundane spaces and objects with an inquisitiveness and generosity that gives us a new perspective on the world we build our lives around.”
Excerpt
Local News Excerpt.pdf
Read an excerpt of Local News by Glen Downie
About the Author
Glen Downie has published half a dozen books of poetry and in 2008 was awarded the Toronto Book Award for his collection Loyalty Management. His work has appeared in the secondary school textbook Inside Poetry, as well as in many anthologies and journals. Formerly a social worker in cancer care, he served a term as writer-in-residence at Dalhousie University’s Medical Humanities Program before returning to a life of anonymity in Toronto as an at-home father.
Other Titles by this Author
Loyalty Management (2007)
