Much like the stoic figure from which its title is drawn, there is an aching emptiness at Scarecrow's core, a desire for completion invoking contrasting images of life and death, love and loss, and nature and artifice. Through its short, imagistic studies and longer, meditative poems, Scarecrow maps the triumphs and losses of life and plumbs the depths of human emotion.
Part elegy, part celebration, Scarecrow delves deep into the earth and rides high on the backs of air-born sparrows. Through precise language and lyric composition, the poet walks along the veil between the living and the dead, drawing the reader along on his precarious journey.
Praise for Scarecrow:
"This intelligent book will yield more riches with each reading." -University of Toronto Quarterly.
"Callanan's voice is distinctive and confident, funny, grave, occasionally visionary, and his technical gifts are multifold." -Books in Canada.
"Callanan has talent to burn, whether producing his seascapes or nature studies or human-subject poems. His eye is exact, his discipline imagist." -The Halifax Chronicle Herald.
We acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP), and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador for our publishing activities.