Book Description

The three volumes of Always Now contain all of Margaret Avison's published books of poetry. The author has removed a very few poems: `Public Address' (from Winter Sun), `The Two Selves' and `In Eporphyrial Harness' (from The Dumbfounding), `Highway in April', `The Evader's Meditation', and `Until Christmas' (from sunblue), `Living the Shadow', `Insomnia' and `Beginning Praise' (from No Time), `Having Stopped Smoking' and `Point of Entry' (from Selected Poems). The opening section of volume one, `From Elsewhere', is arranged according to date of publication, from 1932 to 1991, the date of Selected Poems. `From Elsewhere' includes the `Uncollected' and `New Poems' of that book, except for the two noted above and `The Butterfly', which is here in its original form. All of the poems in Always Now having been considered and reconsidered, and small corrections having been made, the book contains definitively all of the published poems up to 2002 that Margaret Avison wishes to preserve.