Bread from Stones

Stevens' new book of poetry is a book that covers a whole range of life. It opens in the kindergarten and finishes with what may be a final silence as the poet discovers that he might not have "the chance to sing." Poet Eugene McNamara, says that Stevens' poetry takes "an unflinching look at the dreams, nightmares, terrors and glories that lurk just under the surface of the mundane." Many of the poems in this book start with the everyday and search out the myths and secrets that underlie ordinary life, the poet himself calls, "epiphanies of the ordinary." The central section of the book looks at a long period of darkness in the author's life. It also moves into the light, finding drama and the unusual in unlikely places -- the kitchen and dining room, at breakfast time and dinner. It finds its revelations in places revisited. It suggests the way ordinary humans are transformed into something extraordinary, so that sometimes the frantic pace of life is slowed until time stops and "tastes sweet." Stevens' poetry is peopled by characters from his family but also by historical and literary figures and movie stars, resonating sometimes with undertones from Greek tragedy. Ann Munton in Canadian Literature says, "he balances the intimate and the universal, the familiar with the foreign." The book reaches an end with a group of poems that focuses on the passage of time and growing old. This book speaks throughout with a warm and colourful voice -- a poetic staff of life baked out of the very hardness of life. The poetry invites the reader to look through the poetry to find, "the stones/the hearts, the gentle hum/of meaning" -- a book which makes bread from stones.