From his first book, The Visible Man (“as fine a first volume of poetry as one is ever likely to read” — the Dalhousie Review), to his most recent, Resurrection In the Cartoon (“passionate, humourous, worldly-wise, kick-ass poetry” — The Vancouver Sun), Robert Priest’s poetry has been the delight of critics and readers alike. Blue Pyramids: New and Selected Poems brings together the best of Robert Priest’s six books of lyric poems, spells, psalms, aphorisms, koans, diatribes, and prose poems along with an exciting new group of poems and aphorisms. Also included is a selection of never-before-published song lyrics. Relentless in their assessment of contemporary culture, the mordant irony, brutal honesty, and remarkable sensitivity of Priest’s works create a poetic crucible in which the Canadian “melting-pot” is purified of its hypocrisies and reclaimed, ultimately, in the joy of language. Poetry full of flashes of insight. Imaginative in a strange way, he takes inordinate chances with logic, countering absurdity with absurdity, and expanding our sense of human emotional possibilities. — The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature
From his first book, The Visible Man (“as fine a first volume of poetry as one is ever likely to read” — the Dalhousie Review), to his most recent, Resurrection In the Cartoon (“passionate, humourous, worldly-wise, kick-ass poetry” — The Vancouver Sun), Robert Priest’s poetry has been the delight of critics and readers alike. Blue Pyramids: New and Selected Poems brings together the best of Robert Priest’s six books of lyric poems, spells, psalms, aphorisms, koans, diatribes, and prose poems along with an exciting new group of poems and aphorisms. Also included is a selection of never-before-published song lyrics. Relentless in their assessment of contemporary culture, the mordant irony, brutal honesty, and remarkable sensitivity of Priest’s works create a poetic crucible in which the Canadian “melting-pot” is purified of its hypocrisies and reclaimed, ultimately, in the joy of language. Poetry full of flashes of insight. Imaginative in a strange way, he takes inordinate chances with logic, countering absurdity with absurdity, and expanding our sense of human emotional possibilities. — The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature