Post-Prairie: An Anthology of New Poetry - Tapa blanda

Prairie poetry,” as it came to be known in the 20th century, has found no more eloquent and accomplished a practitioner than Robert Kroetsch. Yet the North American prairie his work has made so recognizably visible in all of its characteristic particularities is changing profoundly in the 21st century. This change is marked by the transition of a cultural identity primarily rooted in place, to one that is rooted in a rapidly fragmenting, urbanizing, technology-based globalization. In an opening dialogue between the archetypal practitioner of this poetics of place, Robert Kroetsch, and a new practitioner of a poetics of the search for the often sublimated sign, Jon Paul Fiorentino, the reader bears witness to a rare literary eventa master passing on his legacy to the students who have become his peersthe transition from the unifying classic articulation of place to the diaspora of the vernaculars it has engendered.

Jon Paul Fiorentino
Jon Paul Fiorentino’s first novel is Stripmalling (ECW, 2009). His most recent book of poetry isThe Theory of the Loser Class (Coach House Books, 2006). He is the author of the poetry bookHello Serotonin (Coach House Books, 2004) and the humour book Asthmatica (Insomniac Press, 2005). His most recent editorial projects are the anthologiesCareer Suicide! Contemporary Literary Humour (DC Books, 2003) and Post-Prairie a collaborative effort with Robert Kroetsch, (Talonbooks, 2005).

Robert Kroetsch
Robert Kroetsch is a Canadian novelist, poet, and non-fiction writer. In his novel,The Words of My Roaring (1966), he began to use the tall tale rhetoric of prairie taverns. BothThe Studhorse Man (1969), which won the Governor General’s Award, and Gone Indian (1973) call the conventions of realistic fiction hilariously into question.

In 2004, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.