With the publication of Other Names for the Heart, David Wevill re-established himself as one of the foremost contemporary Canadian poets. Figures of Eight — the title poem is a long lyric sequence — contains poems of astonishing power and insight. Included also are beautiful translations from major Hungarian and Spanish poets.
“His scope is wide, ranging from domestic intimacy to visionary fervor … unaccountably ignored in this country.” —Ken Adachi, Toronto Star.
“Fine poems, in careful yet charged language, that meditate on a godless universe, on ancestral bonds with the desert, on age and death … a lyrical ear and a rueful sense of the limits of the lives we build.” —Books In Canada.
“Wevill’s poems often have a dreamlike or mythic quality….They have all the vividness and exactness of dreams. Wevill is not content to swim on the surface; he dives hazardously into the depths. He has a distinctive voice that compels attention, engenders a kind of concentration that most current poetry fails to engage in….He is totally inimitable.” — Matt Simpson, British journal Stride