The stunning conclusion to a 40-year poetic project In the tradition of earlier modernist long poems like Ezra Pound's Cantos and bp Nichol's The Martyrology, The Invisible World Is in Decline: Book IX is full of startling poetic music and imagery while addressing concerns to which every reader will respond: the life of the heart as well as life during COVID-19, love as well as death, philosophy as well as emotion. The poems are deeply responsive to what an epigraph from Virgil calls "vows and prayers," i.e., those things that we desire and promise. Like previous books of Whiteman's long poem, Book IX is largely in the form of the prose poem. But the book also contains a moving series of translations in traditional form of texts taken from songs by composers like Schubert and Beethoven, songs that are by turns tragic, meditative, lyrical, and touching. The concluding section focuses on an obsession that poets have had for 2,500 years: inspiration, in the form of the nine Muses. At the heart of this book is what Whiteman calls "the bright articulate world," something visionary but accessible to every thoughtful reader. Short, fragmentary poems from Canadian poet, translator, and essayist. Bruce Whiteman is a well-known poet and reviewer who lives in Peterborough and teaches part-time at the University of Toronto's School of Continuing Studies. His book reviews have appeared widely in Canada and the U.S. His long poem, The Invisible World Is in Decline, has been appearing in installments since 1984. Sales and Market Bullets - Whiteman has worked as a rare book specialist at McMaster University, McGill University, and UCLA (the University of California, Los Angeles), and is a founding member of the Hamilton Poetry Centre. - Whiteman contributes book reviews and essays regularly to publications such as the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Hudson Review, and Canadian Notes & Queries. Audience - Canadian poetry readers - Subscribers to publications like CNQ and the Literary Review of Canada

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