Bizarre Winery Tragedy

''Bizarre Winery Tragedy'' is a book of lyric poems about country folk, city folk, alcohol and urbanism. These poems continue Neff''s quest to explore the modern-day juxtaposition of urban and rural landscapes, and the lines of power between the countryside and the metropolis-firewood, dams and the WiFi-enabled grid. Deeper insights emerge in this, the author''s third published collection. ''Bizarre Winery Tragedy'' is 21st-century poetry that juggles death and technology and finds some nasty laughs in the process. Think of it as a strange and tragic road trip through British Columbia''s wine-consuming regions, with Neff at the wheel. "These poems pack a wallop. They''re full of outrage and bravado, tempered by amazing insights and a highly developed musical sensibility. They steam and churn'' with the energy of the city, they burn with this young poet''s hottest fire of sight''." -Lorna Crozier "Lyle Neff understands, without the melodrama and hysterics of so many of his contemporaries, the duality of his natural surroundings-trees and skyscrapers, mountains and public transit-and never once portrays this with anything less than a lyric beauty full of imagination, humour, and optimism." -Evan Jones, New Canadian Poetry "Lyle Neff''s as indiosyncratic and epigrammatic, as off-kilter and dead-on, as insolent and restless and thoughtfully skilled as a poet should be. From here on in almost everybody else is playing catch-up." -Michael Holmes