Imaginary Origins Selected Poems 1972–2003

With a clarity drawn from careful craft, this collection of poems features 30 years of work from a Guyanese Canadian deeply immersed in the transformations of the immigrant experience and able to reflect on a rich personal history. Whether concerned with Guyanese memory or the Canadian present, these poems engage the reader with an open, conversational tone. Encompassing confessional, narrative, and mythic styles, this work is at home in vast poetic and geographic territories and sheds light on a life and career that has spanned genres and nations.

Cyril Dabydeen is the author of Discussing Columbus. He lives in Ottawa City, Ottawa.