Anatomy of Keys by Steven Price (Book)

March 2, 2010 by admin

Anatomy Of Keys by Steven Price A tour de force a book-length poem embracing a wide variety of poetic and prose forms to tell the story of Harry Houdini. Steven Prices Houdini knows better than most the limitations of life having bent the efforts of a lifetime to transcending them and having failed. Ah but his thinking Or rather Steven Prices thinking with and through him. Make it muscular and be apparent in it says Houdinis archivist/advisor words are also escapes. So they are in a book with the sinew of Anatomy of Keys. The facts of Houdinis life are here – immigration to America youth circus stint fame that notorious life-ending punch – but the facts are the spine of a deep and ardent meditation on what is. In poems of astonishing technical virtuosity Steven Price reads Houdinis world and our own in compellingly original ways. Swivel-and-snick sputter of a turned handle. Bald knob bare in the palm. The torpid click And calm take of springs triggered far within. Id set myself to hear it clear again That ordinary hinge and creak and drag Of doors we live with all our days and lose The wonder of. (from XLIV.iv) Steven Price in his Anatomy of Keys draws us into the intricacy of Harry Houdinis character as the Master himself entered trunks chains a web of knots. In poem after poem there is the miraculous surprise of release. These are moving brilliant poems a remarkable debut. – Tim Lilburn Steven Price was born and raised in Colwood BC. His work has appeared in Canadian and American literary journals. He is one of the poets in Breathing Fire 2 Canadas New Poets edited by Lorna Crozier and Patrick Lane.