Shared Universe

Book excerpt: "An encounter with the primordial, the enduring, and the not-yet." -- Canisia Lubrin, author of Voodoo Hypothesis and The Dyzgraphxst Paul Vermeersch has reinvented the "new and selected." Bringing together the very best of his poetry from the last quarter century and new and never-before-published works, Shared Universe is a sprawling chronicle of the dawn of civilizations, the riddles of 21st-century existence, and any number of glorious, or menacing, futures. Selected poetry collections are traditionally organized according to the books in which the poems first appeared, but these poems are arranged by prophecy and mythos, corresponding to the human (or trans-human) body, or as dictated by animal speech. In this universe, time is thematic instead of chronological, and space is aesthetic rather than voluminous. Here, alongside popular favorites, are recently unearthed gems and visionary new poems that reveal the books hidden within the books of one of Canada's most distinctive and imaginative poets.