Critical Acclaim:
the DNA of NHL
Throughout my career in the NHL, I always had a book with me when travelling. I still do today, and feel this book of poetry by Stephen Roxborough is a quick and entertaining read. Stephen has the ability to use words
to illustrate totally divergent meanings, in a way that makes one not only think, but often also smile.
Bobby Baun
17-year NHL player, three-time All-Star, four-time Stanley Cup winner, and author of Lowering The Boom
Stephen Roxborough turns over a new (maple) leaf on the great game of hockey. He peers through the peerless rubber puck, sees into the past through the Zamboni-smooth ice and scores on the wings of dreams that filled the cup-shaped mind of every Canadian child. If you’ve lost your love of hockey, this book is for you. It reminds you why you can’t help yourself from watching the game on TV in a bar with a beautiful stranger who gets bored and leaves: You, too, have the NHL in your DNA. And if you like poetry that brings the greatness of the past to liberate you from the thrall of the present, a poetry of adrenalin-packed, hurly burly boisterous verse that leaves you charged-up and ready for blast-off like an armchair Rocket Richard, this book is also for you. As much a family history and memoire of growing up in the great white north, these poems weave the legendary tales of heroes from hockey’s golden age into a spectacular family tree sprouting hockey sticks instead of branches. Roxborough helps us to remember why Stompin' Tom sang “the best game you can name is the good old hockey game.”
Dr. Kedrick James Multimedia artist, network theorist, and professor of poetry
Like the twisting strands of DNA, or a sweet deke, Stephen Roxborough spins stories and makes organic connections between personal genealogy and NHL lore, creating a text where Howie Morenz and “Howe versus Hull” are equally important to Canadian history as they are to home-life. Roxborough puts ghosts
to rest and answers ongoing arguments about the good old game—writing lines as taut as wrist shot,
he shoots to settle scores.
Sharon Harris Poet and beer league hockey player
EGO TO EARTHSCHOOL
Encyclopaedic in scope, seriously playful, uncanny and witty, often very funny, always wise, rarely solemn, seasoned with more than a dash of righteous fury, Roxborough's luminous poetry (re)makes the world by letting us hear things we thought we knew by heart being spoken for the first time.
Geoff Inverarity screenwriter
Earthschool is filled with great ideas, raving words, freedom rants, jazzy thought-lines, and wonderful wordplays.
Sheri-D Wilson poet
Roxborough works for freedom of thought, elevation of spirit, deeper awareness, and higher consciousness.
Kyle Field (aka Little Wings) singer/songwriter
ego to earthschool is a hard look in2 th eyez uv th organ uv us our grasping n con-trolling wayze obsessd with th frustraysyuns uv turf n th pill we take to be who we were before we needed the pill challenging rewarding poignant erthee amayzing book brillyant with langwage n ideas
bill bissett painter, poet, visionary
These poems explore the absurdity of 21st century life with insight and humor, managing to be playful while asking the serious questions. A rare book of poetry that entertains from cover to cover.
William Taylor Jr. author of To Break the Heart of the Sun
this wonderful perpetual beautiful
Stephen Roxborough, combination sardonic intellectual, Lucille Ball and Peter Pan east of Eden, is one of the finest poets working today. His new collection exposes the bright, quirky eyes and ears of a visual artist with a mastery of words. A remarkable book. Look for him in the holding cell for the maximally aware.
Bart Baxter MTV Poetry Slam Winner, Seattle Poet Populist
Rox has a light touch while reaching deeply inside what makes the universe tick, gentle while grappling with the dead ends of Today. This book knocks on your door and wants to come in, make you laugh and sigh and think.
David Ossman author, actor, director, member of Firesign Theater
Lounging on the surface of domesticity, luminosity and drunken beauty, this wonderful perpetual beautiful, serves as a guidebook through life, language and the pursuit of ecstasis. Everyday life transformed through a lexicon steeped in the elegance of cascading desire, where a vibrating present is continually re-invented.
Adeena Karasick poet, cultural theorist, performer, media artist
a beautiful wundrful book sew romantik sew full uv ironeez abt our destineez n our presents th ironeez uv mor loving all th time thruout th book n th langwage sew brillyant n uplifting sew mesurd n unmesuring sew 4giving what we all need 2 heer n feel as deeplee as ths book duz alert us n moov us n uplift us th blessings uv its inkredibul langwage uv hope n sew artful navigaysyun ths is th book 2 reed giving n sumptuous sew wise n linguistiklee adventurous reelee wundrful n brillyant
bill bissett poet, painter, performer, mystic, author of 80 books
In the form of postmodern Buddhist meditations or mantras, these poems are about simple human happiness. Created out of a pop sensibility and in a pop modality, they're fashioned to free minds and shuffle off some of the weight of contemporary life. They cheerfully bend and blend the clichés and methods of contemporary consumer culture, but send it in a fresh direction. The pleasures here are wise and simple.
Jamie Reid poet, activist, publisher, co-founder of TISH
These poems feel like breathing to me. I need nothing more. I am utterly sated.
Susan Musgrave author, teacher, beachcomber
open heart sutra surgery
sum uv th most romantik poetree evr writtn shakespeare elizabeth barrett browning n rumi wud love as i dew open heart sutra surgery deels with zanee prsuayuns n hot physical needs delite in passyun yerning n finding th marvels uv langwage n desires satiaysyun betrayl distans ing loss is it all random what role duz our doomd intensyunalitee play whats goin on can we know mantra 4 opn life love lerning unlerning book a great book a great reed
bill bissett poet, painter, teacher, mystic
Roxborough apostrophizes Desire in its every form and creates a document I wish had been written to me by all the lovers I’ve ever known. Roxborough speaks the universal languages of physics and philosophy; “mad with randomness and Einstein”, in that place where “everything whirls at the speed of light” yet ultimately brings one to experience compassion for everyone and everything.
Donna Snyder author, lawyer, editor, human rights advocate
Stephen Roxborough sparks a connection between the physical and spiritual as he beckons the reader to make the leap back and forth. Desire beseeched, romance explored and questioned, open heart sutra surgery gleans the wisdom and folly from love and passion while serving us a rare, delicious taste of juicy forbidden fruit.
Karl Blau singer, songwriter, thinker, producer
This is not a book of awkward, flowery language, pretty without substance. This is an in-depth, sometimes playful, yet always painfully honest collection of work written in a language that could, if practiced honestly, be universally understood by all lovers and partners.
Alicia Winski editor (Nightwing Publications)
Open Heart Sutra Surgery is 100% human, whether it be the introspective or animalistic side of us, these poems explore what it means to want. A love poem is a love poem is a love poem, but desire is a whole other ball game. One that can simultaneously house grit and beauty, while still leaving room for weirdness and confusion.
Kayla Greenwell reviewer, Blotterature
A whole book dedicated to love & desire, much in the mode of Neruda's One Hundred Love Sonnets. This would make a great gift for St. Valentine's Day.
Doc Sigerson review of open heart sutra surgery on goodreads
radiant danse uv being (a poetic portrait of bill bissett)
A many-splendoured homage, a love-in, panegyric, ode, encomium, a song of thanks and a reprise of the life and work of a figure who has been prominent in our literary and visual arts landscape for much of the last half-century. Jeff Pew & Stephen Roxborough have collected old and new work from an extraordinary array of Canada’s best — including some less well known — poets and artists.
Ruth Roach Pierson A Rock-Dove of a Rock & Roller, The Fiddlehead
radiant danse uv being is a love letter by such luminaries as Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen, Steve McCaffrey, Jay MillAr, Stuart Ross and others. This book has much to offer and if you have never read bissett it may prove a useful launching point into his work. If you already enjoy his writing, this book will show you are not alone."
Vincent Panka Broken Pencil
Your travelling papers for the magical bissett mystery tour, a synapses-wide-open visit to the land of possibilities. Your guides on this raging trip are many of Canada’s best-known poets, writing with creativity and play in the style/shadow of this most excellent man of letters... Invention, inveteracy, inanity, insanity, individuality-bissett asks for nothing more than a second thought, a second look. And a third. Read this with an open heart and you will perhaps come to ask for the same. Which is a most excellently raging way to close the chapter on summer.
John Burns The Georgia Straight
A fun read, with an amazing array of poems, stories and anecdotes from a veritable Who's Who of CanLit. The book includes contributions by poets whose works have been directly influenced by bissett... It is, however, the surprising contributions from the likes of Margaret Avison, Leonard Cohen, Margaret Atwood, George Bowering and P.K. Page - whose styles differ greatly from bissett's - that reveals how significant his work has been to other writers... radiant danse uv being is a collection with samplings for everyone's tastes.
Greg Santos The Link
An exciting, disarming, kinetic and scintillating anthology honouring legendary Canadian poet and artist, blewointment Press editor, poetry trickster and boddhisattva bill bissett. These sundry works, tributes, stories and visuals reflect and bounce off one another in an Indra’s Net of wit and insight, creating a vibrating portrait. It’s a wild love affair, a sacred conversation, an event, a welcome cultural intervention, the consummate festschrift that shines though this truly radiant danse uv being. Kudos to the community for this sweet and rare pleasure of a book.
Anne Waldman The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics