David W. McFadden
ISBN 978-1-77126-097-8
$17.00 CDN/USA
120 pages
In James Whale’s 1931 film Frankenstein, the doctors clumsy assistant, Fritz, reaches for the jar marked “Normal Brain.” When he drops that one, he turns to the jar marked “Abnormal Brain.” In Abnormal Brain Sonnets, Griffin Prize-winning poet David W. McFadden, now in his sixth decade of writing, reaches once again for the jar labelled “Sonnets” to probe the world around him and the world within him. With humour and poignancy, and a gently philosophical voice, McFadden reaches into his own past to rescue the images and formative influences that have guided his life and thought. He touches, too, on his own diminishing memory and struggle with language resulting from the onset of logopenic aphasia. This lively, unpredictable collection of sonnets concludes with a 2005 author interview by friend and editor Stuart Ross that explores McFadden’s writing life and the role of the poet.
PRAISE FOR DAVID W. McFADDEN
“David McFadden is such an essential writer for us. His wonderful poems… feel to me the central unofficial voice of our time. He has always kept us close to the earth with his humour and his wandering off the beaten path of literature.”
—MICHAEL ONDAATJE
“David McFadden’s poetry is probably the poetry most often read aloud at my house…. We never feel very far from the experience of the poem and that is why they fit into our lives so very well. His is a broad talent, a unique voice and real vision. There’s no one else like him.”
—ELIZABETH BACHINSKY
“David McFadden is one of the purest and most radiant poetic souls of our time.”
—STEVE VENRIGHT
