The Toronto Star called him a legendary figure in Canadian writing, and indeed George Fetherling has been prolific in many genres: poetry, history, travel narrative, memoir, and cultural studies. Plans Deranged by Time is a representative selection from many of the twelve poetry collections he has published since the late 1960s. Like his novels and other fiction, many of these poems are anchored in a sense of place—often a very urban one. Filled with aphorism and sharp observation, the poems are spare of line and metaphor; they display a kind of elegant realism: loading docks, back doors of restaurants, doughnut shops with karate schools upstairs.
In the introduction, A.F. Moritz places Fetherling in the modern picaresque tradition in the aftermath of Eliot and Pound, highlighting his characteristic speaker as an itinerant cosmopolitan outsider, a kind of flâneur, impoverished and keenly observant, writing from a position of “communion-in-isolation.” He contrasts Fetherling’s contemplative intellectualism with that of the public intellectual and highlights this outsider’s fellow-feeling, making the poems indirectly political.
Fetherling’s afterword is an anecdote-anchored exploration of what the poet sees as his two central approaches—“the desire to create new codes of hearing” and “writing-to-heal”—and how they are reflected in the collection.
Authors
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- C811/.54
- Dewey Decimal Edition Number
- 23
- General Note
- Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- ISBN
- 9781554586318 9781554586486
- LCCN
- PR9199.3.F475
- LCCN Item number
- A6 2012eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- CaOONL
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (xvii, 61 p.)
- Published in
- Canada
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)slc00229742 (OCoLC)768534909 (CaOOCEL)443675
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Transcribing agency
- CaOONL
Table of Contents
- Cover 1
- Table of Contents 6
- Foreword 8
- Biographical Note 9
- Introduction 10
- Alleycat 20
- Harry’s New York Bar in Paris 21
- Border Catechism (excerpts) 22
- Subroutine 23
- The Dark Grid 24
- The Six O’Clock News from Buffalo 25
- Moving towards the Vertical Horizon (excerpts) 27
- Memorandum for the File 31
- Pre Texts 32
- Radio 33
- Ancient Beliefs 35
- Telegraphic Instructions 37
- Beginning with North 38
- The View Keeps Reminding Us of Flags 39
- With the Name Goes Great Responsibility 40
- Opportunities for Redemption 42
- Chinese Anthology (excerpts) 43
- Mother Goddess 45
- Art Criticism 46
- Juice 48
- Ice Ages 49
- Old Chinese Poem 50
- Bush Architecture 51
- 0930 52
- Letter Two (excerpt) 53
- Singer, An Elegy (excerpts) 54
- First Signs of Wartime Spring 69
- Navigating Chinatown 71
- Confusion of Themes Not of Motives 72
- Mappamundi 73
- Postdated 75
- Afterword 76
- Acknowledgements 79
