Sanding Down This Rocking Chair on a Windy Night

The sixth book of poems by Don McKay. In Sanding Down This Rocking Chair on a Windy Night, McKay again demonstrates his ability to transorm the familiar into the breathtaking, and to touch us deeply with words. These poems show just how much McKay can do with language. In the long title poem, readers will find themselves listening to a voice that makes them feel welcome and at home, yet as renewed as if they had slipped into new skins -- while the stand-up comedy of the madly speaking starling in "Sturnus Vulgaris" reminds us that poetry can still make readers laugh out loud. Indeed, that starling with the startling voice can be taken, says McKay, as an emblem for this book as a whole: "He argues for multiplicity and many-voicedness, for having centres everywhere."