BOOK: Dirty Snow by Tom Wayman

[Oscar]

Dirty Snow

[ http://www.harbourpublishing.com/title/DirtySnow ]

by Tom Wayman Winner: Acorn-Plantos Award for People's Poetry (2013)

Book Description

Tom Wayman’s newest collection of poems, Dirty Snow, unflinchingly considers the impact of the Afghan War: its absence and presence in Canadians’ everyday lives as citizens of a nation at war.

The collection explores Wayman’s view that Canada’s military intervention in a civil war between two odious sets of combatants has degraded Canadians’ quality of life by, among other means, the conflict’s relentless absorption of public funds in pursuit of dubious ends.
Wayman is also concerned with echoes of the Afghan War in the personal sphere, particularly the war’s effect on the natural world in the mountain valleys of southeastern BC where the author makes his home.

Dirty Snow reveals how life in wartime taints our perception of the landscape, and how the natural cycles provide solace despite the moral and economic quagmires in which the inhabitants of the twenty-first century are attempting to conduct their lives.

From the drone of bagpipes on Kandahar Airfield to jet bombers dropping Canadian schools and hospitals on far-flung Afghan villages, Wayman is a master of potent imagery, approaching his subject with a voice that is passionate and dark, all interwoven with prose introductions, allowing readers the sense that they are present at one of Wayman’s engaging public readings.

= = = =

Congratulations to Tom Wayman, winner of the 2013 Acorn-Plantos Award

[ http://harbourpublishing.com/news/788 ]

Tuesday, December 24, 2013 at 12:54pm

A collection of poems which considers the effects of Canada’s military involvement in the Afghan War on the daily lives of ordinary Canadians has been awarded the 2013 Acorn-Plantos Award.

The prize, which was just announced, went to West Kootenay author Tom Wayman, [ http://www.harbourpublishing.com/author/TomWayman ] for his most recent collection Dirty Snow. [ http://www.harbourpublishing.com/title/DirtySnow ] The annual award goes to a book of poems in the accessible tradition of such major Canadian poets as Al Purdy, [ http://www.harbourpublishing.com/author/AlPurdy ] Dorothy Livesay and Milton Acorn.

“Dirty Snow is a reminder of where poetry should be: at the forefront of political thought, drawing the connections that help us to deeply consider our relationship to the actions of our country and the world around us,” said Vancouver Weekly’s review of the volume.

“Tracing the lines between life at home and war abroad, the collection explores the murders committed and deaths suffered by Canadian troops during the military involvement in Afghanistan. Primarily though, it’s concerned with the connections we’d rather not draw--the ways Canadian war affects us personally, and, perhaps most unsettling, the ways that it doesn’t.”

Wayman said he was pleased that the Acorn-Plantos Award committee felt his book follows in the footsteps of Purdy, Livesay and Acorn, whose writing he said he admires.

“At a time when our politicians at every level are devoid of any sense of shame, and when the traditional upholders of a moral sense such as the union movement or the churches stand silent, a public poetry is more important than ever.

“To write public poetry well is thus a vital responsibility,” Wayman said. “I’m happy that the Acorn-Plantos Award committee feels Dirty Snow fulfils that responsibility.”

The award carries a $500 prize, and a medallion based on that given to Acorn in 1970 when he was designated by his peers the “People’s Poet.”