Poet Steve Locke reviews Kristian Enright’s award-winning collection of poetry, Sonar, in Prairie Fire Review of Books' most recent issue. Locke applauds Enright for side-stepping the archetypes and clichés that his subject matter invites and writes that, rather, "Enright successfully steers right into the heart of his central speaker by pitting the characteristics of his abstract mind against itself."
Locke writes that, by challenging "the conceptualization of madness and creativity," Enright has created a narrative, in Sonar, much like "a veritable patient case file with fragments of journal entries, hospital reports and lyrical poetry that guide the reader through heaven, hell and everything in between."
Poet Steve Locke reviews Kristian Enright’s award-winning collection of poetry, Sonar, in Prairie Fire Review of Books' most recent issue. Locke applauds Enright for side-stepping the archetypes and clichés that his subject matter invites and writes that, rather, "Enright successfully steers right into the heart of his central speaker by pitting the characteristics of his abstract mind against itself."
Locke writes that, by challenging "the conceptualization of madness and creativity," Enright has created a narrative, in Sonar, much like "a veritable patient case file with fragments of journal entries, hospital reports and lyrical poetry that guide the reader through heaven, hell and everything in between."
Read the full review in the most recent issue of Prairie Fire: http://www.prairiefire.ca/current-issue/
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Sonar: Ginsberg saw the best minds of his generation destroyed by madness. But what is madness? In a world that has traded Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs for Prozac and where zombies masquerade as the living, who is really mad? Through the eyes of an artist boxed in by tradtition, Kristian Enright’s debut poetry collection Sonar wrestles with language, mental health and identity.
With the echoed voices of the beat generation, postmodernism and prairie poetics at his side, the narrator, Colin Verbanofsky confronts a world steeped in melancholy. Between his dreams and the reflected impressions of medical staff and fellow patients, Colin struggles to find a place for himself in the brilliance and sadness he sees around him. Like his poetic forbears, Enright deftly uses poetry to express his own profound and epic Howl.
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Kristian Enright's work has been shortlisted for the Matrix Magazine Litpop awards and for the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry. He has been featured in Juice, the University of Winnipeg’s creative writing literary journal, five times, and is a long-time contributor to Winnipeg’s cultural scene. Recently, he completed a Master's degree in creative literature at the University of Manitoba. Sonar is his first full-length collection of poetry.
Turnstone Press Ltd.
