books & reviews

Finding Ft. George

Finding Ft. George is the poetic record of Rob Budde's growing love of Prince George and the Cariboo north-central region of BC. The poems are an act of discovery and they describe the various social, political, historical and environmental systems that Budde encounters with the eye of a patient, astute observer. Engaging in the language of location, each poem explores a place, a time and the process of building a relationship between the two. Sometimes gritty, sometimes ironic, sometimes barely able to see the place at all, the poems are all love poems to a new home-gifts of arrival.

Buy it here.

About Finding Ft. George:

verse bursting with energy... he is well on his way to becoming a major Canadian poet
-Prairie Fire Review of Books

Rob Budde's latest collection of poems Finding Ft. George is a unique look at settling into a new community and making it a home. With poems delving into every aspect of Prince George, British Columbia, Budde's collection reveals aspects of life in a small town that usually go unnoticed by people... The language Budde employs is concise, with each image working together to create a complete picture of Prince George for the reader. Also, the idea of the 'poem' itself occurs in most of Budde's work. The result of such a rhetorical device is the feeling that the reader is being given the opportunity to experience the intimacy of Budde's unique point of view, just as it unravels.
--Taryn Hubbard, JIVE Magazine

The More Easily Kept Illusions

In The More Easily Kept Illusions, Robert Budde introduces the collection with an overview of Purdy's tumultuous life of letters, his legendary personality, his outrageous antics, his peers, his influences, and the history of his publishing career. Reorganizing Purdy's boyd of work, this collection also re-interprets the chronological and thematic development of his writing. Choosing poems for a book like this is necessarily an act of literary criticism and Budde takes care to balance the various critical attentions that have structured the historical responses to Purdy's work. The selected poems will mix lesser-known gems with Purdy's greatest hits. Teachers, poetry-lovers, students, and writers will rediscover Purdy's unique voice. Those who are new to his work will get a full and rich sense of the man some have called the last Canadian poet.

Buy it here.

Flicker

Flicker is made up of short prose pieces, many with the emotional intensity of lyric poems. While a narrative arc penetrates the pieces and binds many of them together, the tightly constructed language and profoundly personal imagery tell another story, the emotional heartbeat that lives beneath language. A young man's summer in the bush becomes a dark,frightening and mysterious meditation on the meaning of wood. The old man for whom he works is seen through the narrator's eyes becoming a gnarled relic of the forest, the tree as human.

Call it what you will--the short-short story, the prose poem, micro-fiction--this unusual form has recently come to the public consciousness via the Governor General's Awards. Now accomplished poet, anthologist and novelist Rob Budde, who calls them "flicers", uses the form to convey glimpses of narrative and character, or story, through the intense personal imagery of poetry.

These stories of youth and experience lure the reader in through plot and characterization using the subjective immediacy of poetry, creating what might one day be called "the flicker effect".

Buy it here.

About Flicker:
Budde is a formidable force in Canadian literature. --Endtype
Rob Budde sees what glimmers at the edge of our peripheral vision. --The Georgia Straight
the pages of his book bubble with satisfying sentences --Prairie Fire

The Dying Poem

On the afternoon that two tonnes of explosives are set to dismember Toronto's Metropolitan Library, poet Henry Black hides himself away in his favourite wing; when his mangled body is uncovered, there's a book lodged in his chest.

Jay Post, a hapless filmmaker, is hired to chronicle the life, death and writings of the poet. In the process of making his documentary, Jay must try to unravel the threads of Henry's labyrinthine, suicide-obsessed mind with only the poems as tools; he must also contend with two of Henry's sometimes lovers, Luisa, a Mexican violinist, and Dee, a feminist writer now living on a farm in the Annapolis Valley and writing a novel about Catherine the Great.

The Dying Poem will take you through stories within stories in search of the mystery behind Henry's artful suicide. And, in the end, the crossing of paths and the difficulty of speaking about the dead tell us something about the making of art and what art makes of us.

Buy it here.

About The Dying Poem:

...his beautiful second novel... luminous, wry, and unflinchingly macabre... a stunning work
--The Globe & Mail

Budde performs the otherworldly feat of dancing with the articulate ghost of language, savouring the sweet pressure of every syllable of every word.
--Aritha van Herk

Budde is in the forefront of the generation of writers whose talent migrates through language and narrative and image.
--Robert Kroetsch

traffick

traffick is an intelligent exploration of the long poem in which the pieces struggle with the order and disorder of language, body, and place.

About traffick:

Budde's traffick proceeds through flash and detour, where meaning is cracked open, and in which each line represents the uncontrolled intersections of word and thought.
--Canadian Literature

Budde has managed to transport to us an explosive text of acrobatic and infinitely intriguing poems.
--Matrix

Misshapen

One day in 1897, as the huge carnival big-top swooshed upward, a child came flying out of the folds of the tent and landed softly in the straw on the ground. This is Slip's story, and skillfully illustrates the curiosity towards the human condition that exists today as it did at the height of the turn-of-the-century freak-show.

Buy it here.

About Misshapen:

Winnipeg writer Rob Budde has hammered together a perfect little book.
--See Magazine

The grandest thing about Misshapen is not its subject--a turn-of-the-century freak show--but its charm.
--The Edmonton Journal

The author knows how to pile one clever image on top of another so that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. The circus motif is explored from every angle...
An economy of phrase is another of Budde's strengths. "We were asleep in their stories, they were asleep to dream us," he writes with a simplicity that satisfies.
--Literature and Language: CBRA

Backed by solid research about the heyday of circus sideshows-gleaned through research at the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin--Budde's first novel weaves fiction and fact, using a rich cast of characters as the glue that keeps it all together.

--See Magazine

Catch as Catch

Anecdote, fragment, diary and sound poetry come together to create the story of Jay, an orphan whose parents are killed in a house fire. Catch as Catch is the scrapbook that documents his solitary passage through life.

Buy it here

About Catch as Catch:

possesses a rare gift for the sounds and smells and flashes locked in our language.
--Prairie Fire

books & reviews	Rob Budde Home Creative Scholarship
	Finding Ft. George Finding Ft. George is the poetic record of Rob Budde's growing love of Prince George and the Cariboo north-central region of BC. The poems are an act of discovery and they describe the various social, political, historical and environmental systems that Budde encounters with the eye of a patient, astute observer. Engaging in the language of location, each poem explores a place, a time and the process of building a relationship between the two. Sometimes gritty, sometimes ironic, sometimes barely able to see the place at all, the poems are all love poems to a new home-gifts of arrival. Buy it here. About Finding Ft. George: verse bursting with energy... he is well on his way to becoming a major Canadian poet -Prairie Fire Review of Books Rob Budde's latest collection of poems Finding Ft. George is a unique look at settling into a new community and making it a home. With poems delving into every aspect of Prince George, British Columbia, Budde's collection reveals aspects of life in a small town that usually go unnoticed by people... The language Budde employs is concise, with each image working together to create a complete picture of Prince George for the reader. Also, the idea of the 'poem' itself occurs in most of Budde's work. The result of such a rhetorical device is the feeling that the reader is being given the opportunity to experience the intimacy of Budde's unique point of view, just as it unravels. --Taryn Hubbard, JIVE Magazine
	The More Easily Kept Illusions In The More Easily Kept Illusions, Robert Budde introduces the collection with an overview of Purdy's tumultuous life of letters, his legendary personality, his outrageous antics, his peers, his influences, and the history of his publishing career. Reorganizing Purdy's boyd of work, this collection also re-interprets the chronological and thematic development of his writing. Choosing poems for a book like this is necessarily an act of literary criticism and Budde takes care to balance the various critical attentions that have structured the historical responses to Purdy's work. The selected poems will mix lesser-known gems with Purdy's greatest hits. Teachers, poetry-lovers, students, and writers will rediscover Purdy's unique voice. Those who are new to his work will get a full and rich sense of the man some have called the last Canadian poet. Buy it here.
	Flicker Flicker is made up of short prose pieces, many with the emotional intensity of lyric poems. While a narrative arc penetrates the pieces and binds many of them together, the tightly constructed language and profoundly personal imagery tell another story, the emotional heartbeat that lives beneath language. A young man's summer in the bush becomes a dark,frightening and mysterious meditation on the meaning of wood. The old man for whom he works is seen through the narrator's eyes becoming a gnarled relic of the forest, the tree as human. Call it what you will--the short-short story, the prose poem, micro-fiction--this unusual form has recently come to the public consciousness via the Governor General's Awards. Now accomplished poet, anthologist and novelist Rob Budde, who calls them "flicers", uses the form to convey glimpses of narrative and character, or story, through the intense personal imagery of poetry. These stories of youth and experience lure the reader in through plot and characterization using the subjective immediacy of poetry, creating what might one day be called "the flicker effect". Buy it here. About Flicker: Budde is a formidable force in Canadian literature. --Endtype Rob Budde sees what glimmers at the edge of our peripheral vision. --The Georgia Straight the pages of his book bubble with satisfying sentences --Prairie Fire
	The Dying Poem On the afternoon that two tonnes of explosives are set to dismember Toronto's Metropolitan Library, poet Henry Black hides himself away in his favourite wing; when his mangled body is uncovered, there's a book lodged in his chest. Jay Post, a hapless filmmaker, is hired to chronicle the life, death and writings of the poet. In the process of making his documentary, Jay must try to unravel the threads of Henry's labyrinthine, suicide-obsessed mind with only the poems as tools; he must also contend with two of Henry's sometimes lovers, Luisa, a Mexican violinist, and Dee, a feminist writer now living on a farm in the Annapolis Valley and writing a novel about Catherine the Great. The Dying Poem will take you through stories within stories in search of the mystery behind Henry's artful suicide. And, in the end, the crossing of paths and the difficulty of speaking about the dead tell us something about the making of art and what art makes of us. Buy it here. About The Dying Poem: ...his beautiful second novel... luminous, wry, and unflinchingly macabre... a stunning work --The Globe & Mail Budde performs the otherworldly feat of dancing with the articulate ghost of language, savouring the sweet pressure of every syllable of every word. --Aritha van Herk Budde is in the forefront of the generation of writers whose talent migrates through language and narrative and image. --Robert Kroetsch
	traffick traffick is an intelligent exploration of the long poem in which the pieces struggle with the order and disorder of language, body, and place. About traffick: Budde's traffick proceeds through flash and detour, where meaning is cracked open, and in which each line represents the uncontrolled intersections of word and thought. --Canadian Literature Budde has managed to transport to us an explosive text of acrobatic and infinitely intriguing poems. --Matrix
	Misshapen One day in 1897, as the huge carnival big-top swooshed upward, a child came flying out of the folds of the tent and landed softly in the straw on the ground. This is Slip's story, and skillfully illustrates the curiosity towards the human condition that exists today as it did at the height of the turn-of-the-century freak-show. Buy it here. About Misshapen: Winnipeg writer Rob Budde has hammered together a perfect little book. --See Magazine The grandest thing about Misshapen is not its subject--a turn-of-the-century freak show--but its charm. --The Edmonton Journal The author knows how to pile one clever image on top of another so that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. The circus motif is explored from every angle... An economy of phrase is another of Budde's strengths. "We were asleep in their stories, they were asleep to dream us," he writes with a simplicity that satisfies. --Literature and Language: CBRA Backed by solid research about the heyday of circus sideshows-gleaned through research at the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin--Budde's first novel weaves fiction and fact, using a rich cast of characters as the glue that keeps it all together. --See Magazine
	Catch as Catch Anecdote, fragment, diary and sound poetry come together to create the story of Jay, an orphan whose parents are killed in a house fire. Catch as Catch is the scrapbook that documents his solitary passage through life. Buy it here About Catch as Catch: possesses a rare gift for the sounds and smells and flashes locked in our language. --Prairie Fire