Imagining Sisyphus Happy

About the Book

In ancient Greek mythology, Sisyphus was condemned by the gods to the meaningless activity of forever rolling a boulder to the top of a hill, then starting all over again after it had promptly rolled back downhill. Taking its cue from the famous essay on Sisyphus by the French existentialist writer Albert Camus, this book's paradoxical title and title-poem suggest the imperative of refusing to despair, of choosing oneÕs own meaning and taking responsibility for it.

Although Imagining Sisyphus Happy includes poems of complaint, mourning, and contemptuous or exasperated satire, the bookÕs overall stance affirms that existential imperative of refusing to despair. As a group these poems might be trying to imagine Sisyphus happy but they discourage IÕve-got-the-truth certainties of every stripe.

A number of these poems are at home in an urban cityscape, with various Toronto streets, parks, and backyards as their setting. As in the authorÕs first book of poems, Intricate Armada (2005), here there is a considerable range of tones, moods, and voices; these poems are not for readers looking for a single, confidently settled point of view.

The prevailing form in this new book of poems is so-called 'free verse', but there are some ballad-like poems and brief forays into very strict forms such as glosa, villanelle, and sonnet.

Mercy Jones, who is quite a strong presence in Intricate Armada, makes some further appearances in this volume, along with a new character called Tewler. DonÕt ask the author where Mercy Jones or this guy Tewler came fromÑhe doesnÕt know.

About the Author

After a university career teaching English literature, including contemporary Canadian poetry, Ian Sowton devotes a good deal of a contentedly busy retirement to writing poetry of his own. Imagining Sisyphus Happy is his second collection of poetry.