Vernacular Muse, The

The Vernacular Muse tackles head-on conservative Canadian critical theory and practice. Personal and provocative, Dennis Cooley's lucid essays range from the vernacular in prairie poetry, poetics of the line break, and the poetry of the eye versus ear to substantial readings of texts by Dorothy Livesay, Margaret Laurence, Michael Ondaatje, Sinclair Ross, and Robert Duncan. The Vernacular Muse is the first collection of critical essays from a central figure in the making and recognition of prairie writing.