Midlife Action Figure: Poems
$12.99-
Banks’s stunning new collection, exploring bold frontiers
“Midlife Action Figure delivers surprise, delight, and sense.” – Quill & Quire, starred review
“Poetry is an act of mischief,” Theodore Roethke famously once said, and Chris Banks takes this as his credo in Midlife Action Figure. His subject matter ranges from the familiar to the surreal, taking readers through poems that are both wondrous and strange, heartfelt and humorous, controlled and impatient. Whether calling a tree “an anthology of leaves” or describing time as “a Fisher-Price View-Master of ‘first kisses’ and ‘no return’ policies,” Banks approaches writing as if anything might make for alarming, strange, and dizzying verse.
Banks knits together wit with wildly inventive imagery as he follows his poems outside convention where they play with stolen matches. Capable of both deep introspection and the quick turn of phrase, he places his tongue firmly in his cheek as he looks for a measure of human wonder in this intermission between TED Talks and the apocalypse. Midlife Action Figure is a tour de force for anyone looking for that rare book that is as exciting as it is provocative, showcasing both pathos and humor, while it explores what it means to be alive in the early 21st century.
BUY FROM:
Price may vary by retailer
Also available at your local independent bookstore!
BUY FROM ECW PRESS:
Chris Banks is a Canadian poet and author of four previous collections of poems, most recently The Cloud Versus Grand Unification Theory (ECW Press 2017). His poetry has appeared in The New Quarterly, Arc Magazine, The Antigonish Review, Event, The Malahat Review, and Prism International, among other publications. He lives and writes in Waterloo, Ontario.
-
Published: September 2019
ISBN: 9781770415058
Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5 in.
Pages: 72
Reviews
“Midlife Action Figure delivers surprise, delight, and sense; Banks slams sly one liners as though he were competing in a professional wrestling match . . . The result is breathlessly entertaining and gut-punchingly wise . . . Midlife Action Figure is an insightful tour through the human experience, crafted in clear and specific imagery that captivates the imagination and the intelligence. It is a book that begs to be read and reread.” — Quill & Quire Starred Review
“A dense, electric collection filled with whip-smart lines and crackling imagery.” — Winnipeg Free Press
“‘My spirit guide is a scarecrow’; ‘guilt is everyone’s personal gulag’; ‘can I coat-check this malaise?’; ‘death is classically trained’: Chris Banks builds poems out of short sentences that are like photons, little packets of energy full of aphoristic punch and surprise. He delights in the swings of imagination, in the way every next image or idea can plow new ground even as it alters the meaning and feel of what has preceded it. The result is a constant state of euphoria, an ongoing demonstration of the swerve and swirl of human consciousness. ‘A river is a correspondence course’ — as with so many lines here, my recognition that I’ve never thought of it that way is followed immediately by the sensation that there’s no other way to see it, that I am being shown the truth.” — Bob Hicok, award-winning poet and author of Elegy Owed
“There were a lot of single lines that stood out to me, I found many gems among these short poems . . . Midlife Action Figure is a powerful collection that will evoke many thoughts.” — Literary Lizard blog
“[A] spirited, wide-ranging collection.” — Toronto Star
“‘The laboratory of aesthetics / these days is really about mischief / and surprise’ writes Chris Banks in this collection of cheeky, pointed dicta on everything from how to survive an emergency to enduring a job interview, amid surreal admissions that the speaker has a ‘minor crush on Saturn's moons’ or possibly suffers a ‘slow leak’ as each year his ‘heart grows an extra ring.’ Midlife Action Figure is a book of solid poems from the centre of existing, through deep space and the places in the mind like ‘Matryoshka dolls’ that endlessly nest into their own allusiveness, returning with a yield of essential observations and imperatives for the continuance of the earth.” — Catherine Owen, award-winning author of Designated Mourner
“The poems are densely thick and incredibly rich, akin, somewhat, to a lyric molasses in which a reader is caught up in an unexpected lyric flow . . . A poetry in which one can't easily pull away from . . . Banks' poems are a kind of lyric collage.” — rob mclennan’s blog
“Midlife Action Figure raises the bar for everyone in 2020. Banks makes you laugh, demands you cry, and kicks you where the sun shines the least when need be . . . If you want to please anyone in your poetry universe you cannot go wrong with Chris Banks’ Midlife Action Figure . . . There is no end to the delights Banks brings to the table. This is what poetry can be, at its best. Absolute and splendid.” — Today’s Book of Poetry blog