The Essential Charles Bruce explores the clear, direct verse and vernacular imagination of Maritime poet Charles Bruce, whose practical, no-nonsense lyrics audaciously eschewed the trappings of modernist poetry.
The poetry of Charles Bruce resonates with the sights and sounds of the Maritimes. Unlike the modernist poets of his time, Bruce embraced rural settings, tactile imagery, structural simplicity and direct language.
The Essential Charles Bruce introduces the poet’s work, long out of print, to modern audiences with a selection of his straightforward yet stirring verses that take as their subject the workaday existence along the shores of Nova Scotia’s Channel Shore. Populated by farmers and fisherman and taking place among bucolic cliffsides and beaches, his poems capture modest moments of everyday life and retain the subtly musical cadences of the regional dialect.
The Essential Poets Series presents the works of Canada’s most celebrated poets in a package that is beautiful, accessible and affordable. The Essential Charles Bruce is the eighteenth volume in the increasingly popular series.