Jane Again by Wayne Clifford

In his sixties, Yeats published the half-dozen poems that drew Crazy Jane out from his imagination to act as a profane voice against the strictures of the Church and the mores o... (More) In his sixties, Yeats published the half-dozen poems that drew Crazy Jane out from his imagination to act as a profane voice against the strictures of the Church and the mores of the age. Wayne Clifford, in his sixties, let a lifetime of wondering why Yeats offered so little explanation of Jane’s human presence settle into his imagination, and let Jane free herself out of the dead to speak once more. In Jane Again, we learn why Jane is crazy, if indeed she is, what part her Jack has played in her passion, how she understands the nature of the divine, and who she insists herself to be in this world almost large enough to hold her.
Wayne Clifford's Crazy Jane is almost always bawdy, irreverent and humorous; it is also loving, moving and beautiful, and should help to cement Clifford’s reputation as one of the most inventive versifiers to come out of Canada in years.

Clifford’s tightly wrought diction verges on verbal contortionism…[his] sonnets surprise with wit and pithy ambiguity. – Quill & Quire

[Wayne Clifford] offers a masterclass on how a single form can assume a protean variety of shapes, sounds and voices. It also confirms the incantatory powers of one of our most unpredictable poets. – Carmine Starnino

Balance between taut rhyme and meter and occasional variance, between language of musical theory and popular crudity, marks Clifford's collection. – Brook Houglum, Canadian Literature

Clifford handles the form with humorous familiarity, nimbly picking his way through the gamut of sonnet stanza forms, in rhythms both jazzy and iambic. – Harry Vandervlist, Quill & Quire

Wayne Clifford is the author of seven books of poetry. His most recent collections are The Book of Were and On Abducting the ‘Cello, both published by The Porcupine’s Quill. Clifford has published poems in an incredibly broad range of journals – from Canadian Forum to avant-garde magazines like bill bissett's Blewointment, bpNichol's ganglia, and Sheila Watson's White Pelican. He lives in Halifax where the benign seclusion of obscurity is conducive to sonneteering.

POETRY
April ● World ● First Publication ● 5 ½ x 8 ½ ● 80 pp
Softcover 978-1-897231-55-5
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