W e’re very pleased over here at Mansfield headquarters to see Peter Norman receive even more kudos for his brilliant work. A few weeks ago, Peter won the Battle of the Bards at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre, and now Stewart Cole, on his blog The Urge, has taken a close and enthusiastic look at Peter’s second full-length poetry collection, Water Damage.
Cole writes at the end of his long, thoughtful essay:
This may sound far-fetched; but Norman’s work across both At the Gates of the Theme Park and Water Damage lends itself to far-fetchedness on the reader’s part: it is smart, funny, skillful, and various enough to tug our imaginations in all sorts of strange and contradictory directions. Read both books the way you’d listen to one of the great double albums—plugged in for the long haul, prepared to see any apparent inconsistencies as in the service of the whole—and let them subtly stunrip you.
Congratulations, Peter!