Galleon Books

Recarving the Chrysoprase Bowl

The first volume of Tom McGauley’s life’s work, The Book of Gates, is now available for pre-order. This is a limited-edition printing, though afterwards a print-on-demand option will exist. See order form below.

Only now is the scope and breadth of McGauley’s work in poetry visible in published form … Recarving the Chrysoprase Bowl is a work of poems in sequence, each with its morning that is neither poised in apartness, nor self-entangled in the verbal undergrowth of the others. The sequence is cumulative, building up its images, landscapes, names, sites, and settings, one at a time. Though there is no plot to follow, there is a dense fabric of reiterated language-actions and verbal patterns to take in and move through, whether one reads deeply, for motifs and allusions, or for the surface effects in which the poetry has its profoundest life: its rhythms, sound-textures, derangements of syntax, and acoustic concretions.
                                   — from the Afterword (Luke Franklin)

Tom McGauley, poet, historian, editor, archivist, custodial worker and union officer, studied under Robin Blaser and Ralph Maud and lived for many years in Castlegar and Burnaby, while travelling widely in many countries and climes, especially in India.

Please use the form below for any questions, or to enquire about orders outside of Canada.