- The Grey Islands
- John Steffler
- 1894078136
- 9781894078139
- 182
- 2000
- 5.5" × 8.75"
- $14.00
to buy with PayPal or a Credit Card
Cover art:
Photograph by John Steffler
e-book:
You can buy the e-book edition of this title from Kobo, Nook and the Sony Reader Store.Listen to Poems from The Grey Islands
Since its first publication in 1985, The Grey Islands has become a classic of Canadian wilderness writing to set beside the works of Thoreau, Annie Dillard and Aldo Leopold. Using a broad range of forms and styles - lyric, anecdote, field notes, documents and pseudo-documents, ghost story, tall tale - Steffler relates the story of one man's pilgrimage to a remote island of Newfoundland's northern peninsula. Often comic, and always deeply passionate and sensuous, The Grey Islands tells of the sharpening of perceptions whetted by solitude, wind and rock, and of the pilgrim's people - living and dead - who have striven to exist under its harsh regime. As in his other books, like That Night We Were Ravenous or his acclaimed novel The Afterlife of George Cartwright, Steffler's writing delivers the bite of raw experience and embraces existence at the edge in all its terror and beauty.
Brutal Mechanics and Newfoundland Poetics: An interview with John Steffler (excerpts)
Interview by María Jesús Hernáez Lerena (Arc, issue #67, winter 2012)
Read an excerpt here.
John Steffler writes about The Grey Islands in the Griffin Poetry Prize Questionnaire in the National Post (May 31, 2011)
Q: What haven’t you yet done, in terms of your career as a poet, you still wish to accomplish?
A: I want to write a book of poetry that speaks about some part of my original home place, Ontario, in the same way that my book The Grey Islands speaks about a part of Newfoundland. That book throws itself into a wide-eyed exploration of landscape, history, culture, and society. It gives an overview made up of intimate snapshots. It blends immediate daily experience with formal research. If I could write a book like that about the place where my ancestors have their roots I’d be happy."
Third printing
And now you can listen to The Grey Islands (John Steffler) - unabridged audio book edition on Rattling Books.
Narrated by John Steffler and (in order of appearance) Frank Holden, Janis Spence, Deidre Gillard-Rowlings and Darryl Hopkins.
Reviews
- The Grey Islands by John Steffler by Kemeny Babineau (Poetry Spoken Here webstore, 2002)
- Book Number 82: The Grey Islands, by John Steffler by Don McKay (What is Stephen Harper Reading? - May 24, 2010)
- The Grey Islands by John Steffler by Heather Craig (Books in Canada)
- Brutal Mechanics and Newfoundland Poetics: An interview with John Steffler (excerpts) by Interview by María Jesús Hernáez Lerena (Arc, issue #67, winter 2012)
- Inspired by nature - on the Grey Islands by Doug Gallant (The Guardian, PEI, August 10, 2012)
