Recommended Age, Grade, and Reading Levels
- Age: 15
- Grade: 10
Description
"Selected for Poetry in Transit 2009", A Well-Mannered Storm is an exploration of loose correspondence between one of Canada's greatest musicians, Glenn Gould, and "K," an admiring fan. Braid weaves an intimate dynamic as K struggles with the loss of her hearing in one ear, finding her greatest comfort in Gould's music--particularly when he plays Bach. Gould's poems don't directly reply, but they do echo a response as he struggles with his own difficult life; his family, his health, his strong beliefs in how music should be presented and his personal habits considered "eccentric" by an ever-watchful press. K starts to accept her changing world, just as Gould begins a downward spiral into disintegration. In his final reflection, Gould acknowledges that in spite of his personal trials, his music now circles the world in the spacecraft Voyager as Earth's example to other possible life forms of what is most beautiful in this civilization.
A Well-Mannered Storm is a striking and masterful volume of poems that does justice to Gould's brilliance, offering insights into his personal life and art, even as it showcases Braid's own virtuosity.
About the author
Kate Braid worked as a receptionist, secretary, teacher’s aide, lumber piler, construction labourer, apprentice and journey-carpenter before finally “settling down”? as a teacher. She has taught construction and creative writing, the latter in workshops and also at SFU, UBC and for ten years at Vancouver Island University (previously Malaspina University-College). She is the author of A Well-Mannered Storm: The Glenn Gould Poems, Covering Rough Ground, To This Cedar Fountain and Inward to the Bones: Georgia O’Keeffe’s Journey with Emily Carr. In 2005 she co-edited, with Sandy Shreve, In Fine Form: The Canadian Book of Form Poetry. Braid’s second book of poems about her carpentry experiences, Turning Left to the Ladies, was published by Palimpsest Press. She lives in Burnaby, BC, with her partner.
Librarian Reviews
A Well-Mannered Storm: The Glenn Gould Poems
This anything-but-ordinary poetry collection moves between brief letters from a character called ‘k’ and imagined commentaries from the gifted pianist, Glenn Gould. As the correspondence continues, ‘k’ develops profound deafness in one ear and Gould reveals more of his superstitions and odd habits. As the epilogue’s biographical notes reveal, “Some have suggested that some of Gould’s ‘eccentricities’ … were signs of Asperger’s Syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism. If so, they are confirmation that disability from one perspective, is brilliance from another”. Contains archival black-and-white photographs of Glenn Gould.Braid has written work based on artists Emily Carr and Georgia O’Keeffe. She is also part of the team who produced the eminently useful, In Fine Form: The Canadian Book of Form Poetry.
Source: The Association of Book Publishers of BC. BC Books for BC Schools. 2009-2010.
Other titles by
Hammer & Nail
Notes of a Journeywoman
Elemental
In Fine Form
The Canadian Book of Form Poetry
Covering Rough Ground
Canadian Artists Bundle
Emily Carr / Tom Thomson / James Wilson Morrice
Quest Biographies Bundle — Books 1–5
Emma Albani / Emily Carr / George Grant / Jacques Plante / John Diefenbaker
Journeywoman
Swinging a Hammer in a Man's World
To This Cedar Fountain
Inward to the Bones
Georgia O'Keeffe's Journey with Emily Carr
