Perfection

By Patrick Warner

Patrick Warner’s Perfection — the follow-up to his award-winning Mole — makes a carnival of our most potent and dangerous obsessions. A factory outlet sells designer human parts at cut-rate prices, a midlife crisis becomes a cleansing ritual, a chocolate-chip pancake stands accused at trial, and the predatory voice of anorexia speaks to a transfixed audience. In descending the rabbit hole of this wildly imaginative collection, we find ourselves amid a field of engagement where destructive ideals of beauty, politics, art, romantic love, and spirituality are ambushed by roguish parody, acerbic satire, life-affirming laughter, and a hard-won pragmatism. And while Warner’s trademark playfulness and formal ingenuity remain intact, his classic arms-length objectivity gives ground to a private and autobiographical directness of style often evaded in his earlier work. In Perfection, where death is certain and certainty is hell-bent on death, Warner refuses to rest on his laurels, continuing to build on his reputation as one of the most respected voices in Canadian poetry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Goose Lane Editions
• Release date: Sep 28, 2012
• ISBN: 9780864927682

Patrick Warner

PATRICK WARNER was born and raised in Claremorris, Co. Mayo, Ireland. He moved to Newfoundland in 1980 in search of better weather and economic prosperity. Bitterly disappointed on both counts, he turned to writing, penning three critically acclaimed poetry collections and a novel, double talk. One Hit Wonders is his second fiction offering. Patrick currently lives in downtown St. John’s with his wife, Rochelle, and two daughters, Annie and Greta.

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