PRESS RELEASE – BOOK TOUR INFORMATION october 2, 2003 book title: Midgic author: Douglas Lochhead publisher: Gaspereau Press genre: Poetry details: $18.95 / 1894031792 / trade paper Midgic is a suite of poems about falling in love with a marsh landscape and the people who inhabit it. Over the course of four seasons and 74 short poems, Douglas Lochhead charts observations that are equal parts geology and humanity. This is a love comprised of smooth lines and of sudden thrills. From occasional offshoots – an address to Emily Dickinson, brawls in neighboring Sackville and encounters with dogs and children – Lochhead returns to the fi xed elements of land- scape that are his mainstays: the long horizon, marsh ecology, farmland, sea, sky and weather patterns. These returns, and the repetition of select words, provide a gentle nudging that succeeds in being both rhythmic and visual, establishing Midgic in the reader’s mind. Lochhead’s short lines and simple language add to the elemental quality of this series, providing descriptions that touch the edges of a much deeper passion for place, one that has some of the characteristics of a marriage. There is a strong sense of longevity developed in the return to basic features of the geography time and again, vague and dependable like the sound of “night freight/ over the marsh.” There are moments of delight and novelty that stand out too: the curtain of spring rises to the applause of birds the Midgic audience claps hands, stamps feet Lochhead’s Midgic has human qualities that emerge over the course of this suite. Attitude, mystery, laziness and lisping. Midgic is a “shelf of mysteries” and a place that “goes back to sleep/waiting/ for someone to take/ the garbage out” come spring. Midgic’s narration is both heady and grounded. Our lover is a romantic on one page and con- scientious neighbor on the next. Just as he swings between sweeping sky lines and minute pockets of spring thaw, Lochhead’s time frame joins a Saturday night to centuries of human settlement. Bowled over by the charms of this place, Lochhead nonetheless locates these poems in history, amongst the various communities that have inhabited Midgic over the years, from Mi’kmaq to Estabrooks. This book will appeal to those who know the geography of the Tantramar and to those who have ever felt a love for any stretch of land. For as the author aptly quotes in his preface, “The local is the only universal” (John Dewey). Douglas Lochhead has published over 20 volumes of poetry in the last fi ve decades. Most recent are Orkney: October Diary (2002), Weathers: Poems New and Selected (2002) and Cape Enragé (2000). He served overseas as a lieutenant in the Canadian artillery and infantry. He was Founding Librarian and a Senior Fellow at Massey College, Professor of English at University College, University of Toronto and Director of Canadian Studies at Mount Allison University. He resides in Sackville, New Brunswick as the town’s Poet Laureate, Professor Emeritus at Mount Allison and dedicated patron of Mel’s Tea Room. FALL READINGS AND EVENTS Sackville, nb – Wednesday, October 15, 2003 Book Launch and Reading with poet John Terpstra 7:30 pm – Owen’s Art Gallery Mount Allison University, Sackville Kentville, ns – Sunday, October 19, 2003 Gaspereau Press Authors Reading and Fall Launch 2 pm – Cornwallis Dining Room 342 Main Street, Kentville contact: beth crosby, gaspereau press one church ave, kentville, ns, b4n 2m7 902-678-6002, [email protected] www.gaspereau.com.