The poetry of Don McKay is renowned for its piquant wit, lyric emotion, and pitch-perfect vernacular music. His work has received national acclaim and the recognition of many awards, including the Governor General’s Award for Poetry, which he has won twice, and, most recently, from the prestigious and internationally known Griffin Poetry Prize, for which his most recent book was a finalist.

Camber is the lilt in the physics of flight, the anti-gravitational alchemy of both wings and poetry. It is also at the heart of the poetry of Don McKay. Spanning three decades, and drawing on all of McKay’s major collections, this selection distills the essence of his craft and provides an overview of, and an ideal introduction to, the work to date of one of Canada’s most celebrated poets.

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FINALIST 2005 - Griffin Poetry Prize

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“There may be no other poet in Canada who has such a fine ear for rhythm, for presenting an image that haunts you even in your sleep.…”
–Edmonton Journal

“Don McKay is a poet of the senses, not merely of their fingertip interactions with the world, but of the deeper senses, the bone experience of life.”
–London Free Press

“This is a poetry of extraordinary inventiveness and linguistic verve.… One of our finest poets.”
–Montreal Gazette

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University of Calgary’s 100 Canadian Poets profile
Read an excerpt (PDF).
League of Canadian Poets profile

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Don McKay is the author of eleven books of poetry, most recently Strike/Slip. He has won two Governor General’s Awards for Poetry and has been shortlisted twice for the Griffin Poetry Prize, most recently for Camber: Selected Poems, which was a Globe and Mail Notable Book of the Year. McKay is also known as a poetry editor, and he has taught poetry in universities across the country.

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