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The lead singer and lyricist for the popular Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip has written a collection of poetry. The poems reveal both the public and the private selves of one of Canada's most enigmatic musicians. Downie writes of life on and off the road and the loneliness and isolation in each, the longing and desire, the dreams and the nightmares. Layered and deceptively simple, this book is best read "...in the parking lot's/pink Coke machine glow."
About this Author
Gordon Downie was a Canadian rock musician, writer, occasional actor, and activist. He was the lead singer and lyricist for the Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip from its inception in 1984 until his death in 2017. In 2001, Downie recorded his first solo album, Coke Machine Glow, and published his first book of poetry and prose of the same name. He released six more solo albums, two of which were published posthumously. Downie, along with his bandmates from The Tragically Hip, was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2017 for contribution to Canadian music and their support of environmental and social causes.
Reviews
"[Downie] writes in an accessible, entertaining way, but with a refined enough approach that his works can't be dismissed as crude or simplistic. When he wants, he can be quite funny, and he can drop Canadian references -- Pierre Trudeau, Tim Horton's, hockey, Canada geese -- without sounding like he's trying to be Canadian. His particular strength as a poet is his unusual, unexpected imagery... the words are exact, sensuous and satisfying." --National Post
"Downie's fertile imagination can no longer be contained within the Hip alone." --Nicholas Jennings, Maclean's
"Downie has a casually attentive way with words; each one does its work without mystification or excess. At a time when poetry has mostly turned away from large-scale social realities, he bridges deftly and persistently between personal and national narratives. Like Greg Curnoe and Stan Rogers, he never learned that 'here' is a four-letter word." --Robert Everett-Green, Globe and Mail
"Coke Machine Glow...is perhaps the most eagerly anticipated poetry collection in recent memory...Downie doesn't disappoint...[He] is something of a national treasure." --Calgary Herald
"Coke Machine Glow is a wildly enjoyable read...[Downie] writes of and from hotel rooms, hotel bars and diners, giving us a peek at the often boring and lonely, but occasionally exhilarating, life of a travelling performer." --Moe Berg, Globe and Mail
"[Downie's] gentle irongy and clever conceptual turns are thoroughly contemporary and undeniably original...Downie's debut...possess[es] a distinct, personal vision and reintroduces whimsy and humour to an artform often hobbled by its own self-importance -- laudable achievements for any first book." --Kevin Connolly, eye Weekly
"Songs like "Thirty-eight Years Old,' 'Wheat Kings' and 'Nautical Disaster' have inspired a new generation of Canadian poets by demonstrating how relevant, contemporary narratives can be rendered in provocative yet accessible verse...[H]is best poems [are] elegantly understated..." --Quill and Quire
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