Handwriting

"Tumultuous, vibrant, tragic and over too soon." --Newsday Handwritingis Michael Ondaatje's first new book of poetry sinceThe Cinnamon Peeler. The exquisite poems collected here draw on history, mythology, landscape, and personal memories to weave a rich tapestry of images that reveal the longing for--and expose the anguish over--lost loves, homes, and language, as the poet contemplates scents and gestures and evokes a time when "handwriting occurred on waves, / on leaves, the scripts of smoke" and remembers a woman's "laughter with its / intake of breath. Uhh huh." Crafted with lyrical delicacy and seductive power,Handwritingreminds us of Michael Ondaatje's stature as one of the finest poets writing today.

Michael Ondaatje is the author of three previous novels, a memoir and eleven books of poetry. His novel <b>The English Patient</b> won the Booker Prize. Born in Sri Lanka, he moved to Canada in 1962 and now lives in Toronto.