Handwriting

Tumultuous, vibrant, tragic and over too soon. --NewsdayHandwriting is Michael Ondaatje's first new book of poetry since The 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, Handwriting reminds us of Michael Ondaatje's stature as one of the finest poets writing today.From the Trade Paperback edition.