Braille Rainbow

Description

Finalist for the Nelson Ball PrizeIn a dark time, wrote Theodore Roethke, the eye begins to seeand withBraille Rainbow, Mike Barnes reveals both darkness and the light that shines beyond it. Beginning with a suite of poems completed before and immediately following his admission to a psychiatric unit as a young man, Barness quiet lyricism and formal sensitivity capture those moments of perception that remind us how to see.Praise for Braille RainbowRemarkablehauntingstriking[Barnes] writes affectingly of his struggles with mental illness (a picking up and dropping again/of the pieces I could salvage/ in a swamp between dread waters and dry land) but also of finding joy in small things.Toronto StarWhile the 13 poems demonstrate [hebephrenia], they do much more. One poem (in its entirety) reads as utterly lucid: cast your prejudicial eye / into the sea. as it falls / mumble something bitterly / about an eyepiece that floats. Another, failed inventory, is as tightly structured as they come, each line building on the previous one the chair chaired the meeting / the pen penned the minutes and so on until the I of the poem comes undone in an anguish of confusion and observation, finally tying together I and eye.. . . But in case anyone thinks Barness work is all dark (it mostly is), he does also flirt with joy.Quill & QuirePraise for Mike BarnesBarnes writes like a contrary angel.The Malahat ReviewTimely, lyrical, tough, accurate. Margaret AtwoodMasterful The Adjustment Leagueis suspenseful, exquisitely written andat timescorrosively funny.Brian Bethune,MacleansRecounted in fragmented, almost impressionistic prose that is sharp as glass shards,The Adjustment Leagueis an intense journey into the underbelly of contemporary society, and a visceral descent into darkness. It is a powerful and original work, which succeeds as a mystery and something altogether deeper.Quill and QuireThe Adjustment Leagues superpower is in its crackling portraits. The Super takes his place in the queue of great damaged detectives (see Sherlock Holmes). Its this Supermans mind thats stronger than steel.The Globe and Mail fiercely alive, marked by a sharp, unerring eye for detail and a wonderful way with metaphors.Toronto Star