“Bennett’s artistry lies in his ability to create poems that shatter complacency with bricks of loaded language.” ― Quill & Quire on Civil and Civic
“How are you doing, happinesswise?” This is the unifying thread, the casual-sounding but slant and penetrating question posed by these poems as they interrogate what we tell ourselves about happiness, about its opposite, and about ourselves in the process.
Happinesswise is both cacophony and chorus: it’s the voices of palliative patients and physicians, and the place where the dream state of a young pregnant woman clashes with the online reality of daily life. It’s personal too: a suite explores a five-year period of Bennett’s autistic son’s childhood, charting a journey of love and misunderstandings, of anxiety and celebration as the wonders of neurodiversity unfold.
There are elegies too. And confessional poems, like “On the Occasion of Her Swearing In,” where Bennett witnesses up close his friend’s remarkable transition from Afghan refugee and grassroots activist to member of parliament and cabinet minister. Other poems demarcate the gaps (literal and less so) found every day in rural Ontario, or consider personal, political, and cultural history within a series of loops and twists.
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Jonathan Bennett is the author of seven books, including two previous collections of poetry, Civil and Civic and Here is my street, this tree I planted. He is a winner of the K.M. Hunter Artist Award in Literature. Born in Vancouver, raised in Sydney, Australia, Bennett lives in the village of Keene, Ontario.
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Book Description Soft Cover. Condition: new. Seller Inventory # 9781770414280
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Brand New. 71 pages. 5.50x8.25x0.25 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # 1770414282
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # V9781770414280
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # V9781770414280
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. - The poems touch on themes of sickness, palliative care, how we cope, and the relationships between parents and children, drawing on Bennett's experience as a parent to an autistic child as well as his work in the hospitals- The perspectives in the poems shift between the personal, the imagined, and the political- "Bennett's artistry lies in his ability to create poems that shatter complacency with bricks of loaded language" Quill & Quire on Civil and Civic The third collection of poetry from Jonathan Bennett explores answers to the question, "How are you doing, happinesswise?" Shipping may be from our Sydney, NSW warehouse or from our UK or US warehouse, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9781770414280
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. - The poems touch on themes of sickness, palliative care, how we cope, and the relationships between parents and children, drawing on Bennett's experience as a parent to an autistic child as well as his work in the hospitals- The perspectives in the poems shift between the personal, the imagined, and the political- "Bennett's artistry lies in his ability to create poems that shatter complacency with bricks of loaded language" Quill & Quire on Civil and Civic The third collection of poetry from Jonathan Bennett explores answers to the question, "How are you doing, happinesswise?" Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9781770414280