George Whipple was born in Saint John, NB, grew up in Toronto, and now lives in Burnaby, BC. A member of the League of Canadian Poets, he has been profiled in Canadian Author, Poet's Market, (US) and is listed in Contemporary Authors, and The Literacy Guide to Toronto. Footsteps on the Water (Black Moss Press 2005) is his eight book of poetry.
"His work is inerrant, awaking a reader to see and feel truth." - Margaret Avison in Introductions
"A Poet who has found the sublime balance between powerful emotion and intellectual tranquility... aspiring poets and students of serious literature would do well to study this master of the English language." - R.W. Stedingh in Canadian Literature
" A poet revelling in exuberant metaphor who deserves to be better known." - W.J. Keith, Canadian Book Review Annual
"You have something missing from most contemporary poetry- your dance with words." - Kildare Dobbs
Words
As air invisibly hugs chimneys, roofs,
running its fingers over gables, eaves,
lets words embrace your wonder and return
it touch for touch - as fondled photographs
reward a lover's kiss with absent cheeks.
Are butterflies or flowers on that stem?
If flowers, air is galliard with the hazard
of their flight . . . all things are one and bloom
from the same shoot, the emblematic Word,
the solemn Om of which we are the breath.
We give ourselves away in what we write,
the harvest that has picked us, every choice
crisp appleword, root-cellar-cool and moist
and chaste to the ripe core if you should eat
- yet tasteless, withered, green, unless it's read.
Whipple says the above poem is based on "multiple and off-the-wall metaphysical conceits," controlled by uniform stanzas and off-rhyme. The final pun - words are green unless read (red) - caps the work The combination of metaphysical conceits (comparisons of unlike objects - "air" and "words," for example) and puns (witty word play) are hallmarks of Whipple's voice. (Writer's Digest U.S.)
My poems are a balance of contrary forces: ardor/order, rhetoric/slang, enlightenment/delight, pictures painted on sounds. Mixing every kind of meter, line length, ace and pitch, helping them find their voice, I try to create that variety in unity which changes boring excitement into the passionate calm of art.
George Whipple, #2004-4390 Grange St, Burnaby BC V5H 1P6.