Poetry. In his remarkably assured debut, Simon Thompson shows us the place where he lives, where everything inevitably comes back to the center. The predominant impression is of a man, sometimes seen from a long way off, moving indecisively towards some overwhelming question. The poems are driven by images of the north: the wealth of rivers, the sodium lights of long winters, the broken concrete foundations of abandoned mills; these are the things that are the source of the poet's ideas. Having said that, the poems lie beyond an easy theoretical grasp; the world itself is too wild, too unruly to be contained by theory. The poems seem to say nothing but the energy contained within themselves is permanent; everything else is temporary, subject to erosion.

Author City: Terrace, BC CAN

Simon Thompson was born in England but has lived in Canada most of his life. He obtained his Bachelor of Journalism from Carleton University in 1989 and went on to Simon Fraser University for his MA in English in 1992. Thompson teaches English at Northwest Community College in Terrace, where he has lived for many years. WHY DOES IT FEEL SO LATE? is his first book.