Disappointment Island

Since Alberta poet Monty Reid moved from badlands Alberta (Drumheller) to badlands Quebec (Aylmer) in April 1999, he has barely published at all. Now that he has moved directly into the City of Ottawa, he gives us his Disappointment Island, made up of a sequence of sequences, including some that have previously appeared in editions by BookThug and above/ground press.

Monty Reid takes the best of a small idea and stretches it, moving from poems that are short, individual, and even quick, and that resonate through simple information, in that way that feels almost Creeley-esque, to the extension of an idea pulled gracefully across the page.

These may poems hold the weight of the emotional world on their shoulders, referencing bluegrass, the Gulf Islands and Cuba, as well as friends and lovers, and they never disappoint.

Born in Saskatchewan, Monty Reid worked at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in Drumheller before moving to Ottawa in 1999 to become Director of Exhibition Services at the Canadian Museum of Nature. Disappointment Island (2006) won the Lampman-Scott Award and was shortlisted for the Ottawa Book Award. Reid has also won three Stephan G. Stephansson Awards for Poetry (Alberta Literary Awards) and been nominated three times for the Governor-General’s Award.