69传媒professor emeritus Brent MacLaine launches new poetry collection
Prometheus Reconsiders Fire, a new book of poetry by Dr. Brent MacLaine, will be launched at a public event on Wednesday, May 25, at 7:30 p.m., in the North River Fire Hall鈥檚 Ember Room.
A native of PEI, MacLaine is professor emeritus and a 3M Teaching Fellow in the Department of English at UPEI. In addition to numerous academic articles on modern literature, he has published four volumes of poetry. His awards for poetry include a League of Canadian Poets prize, the Prince Edward Island Book Award, and the Atlantic Poetry Prize.
In Prometheus Reconsiders Fire, MacLaine undertakes an exploration of fire. The title poem establishes Prometheus as the poet鈥檚 persona, a voice that is dedicated to the reconsideration of fire in both its benevolent and malevolent aspects. Formal and elegant, Prometheus plots a trajectory between the classical and the local, a bearing that will be familiar to readers of MacLaine鈥檚 earlier work, Athena Becomes a Swallow.
Wide-ranging in its geography, the new book is wrapped 鈥檙ound by 鈥淭he Fire Hall Suite,鈥� which begins and ends the book. The poems in the collection respond to the 鈥渄rive-by wisdom鈥� created by the anonymous 鈥淪ign Person鈥� who speaks to the local community by way of the fire hall鈥檚 roadside sign. Framed by the 鈥淪uite,鈥� the poems of Prometheus move between city and country. A naturalist in the city, MacLaine brings to the urban environment the acutely observing eye that has always characterized his Island nature poems. The book is published by Nimbus Publishing.
Everyone is invited to attend the launch of Dr. MacLaine鈥檚 newest book. The Ember Room is upstairs in the North River Fire Hall, Trans Canada Highway, North River, PEI.
Congratulations, Dr. MacLaine!
