George Amabile's eleventh book and newest collection of poetry explores the relationships between civilization, technology, empire and human violence, theatres of war, the collateral damage of military occupation, the machinations of power politics, oil spills, destruction of the environment, PTSD, and other characteristics of what we call "world events." These are tough poems for tough times -- our times -- when the human cost of military conflict, environmental disaster and gun violence have become the daily staple of news headlines. Provocative, unflinching and at times raw with the poet's fury at unfathomable acts, Amabile's poems converge as an urgent libretto against the militaristic tendencies that surround us, inciting a march toward the creation of a more peaceful and sincere world.

George Amabile has published his poetry, fiction and non-fiction in the USA, Canada, Europe, England, Wales, South America, Australia and New Zealand in over a hundred anthologies, magazines, journals and periodicals including The New Yorker, The New Yorker Book of Poems, Harper's, Poetry (Chicago), American Poetry Review, Botteghe Oscure, The Globe and Mail, The Malahat Review, The Penguin Book of Canadian Verse, Saturday Night, Poetry Australia, Sur (Buenos Aires), Poetry Canada Review, Canadian Literature, and Margin (England).

He was Writer in Residence at University of British Columbia for 1969-70, co-founder and editor of The Far Point, founder and editor of Northern Light, has edited a dozen titles for Nuage Editions, Signature Editions, Penguin and has published eight books. The Presence of Fire (McClelland & Stewart, 1982), won the CAA National Prize for literature; his long poem, Durée, placed third in the CBC Literary Competition for 1991; 'Popular Crime' won first prize in the Sidney Booktown International Poetry Contest in February, 2000; 'Road to the Sky' received an honorable mention National Magazine Award for 2000, 'What We Take with Us, Going Away' was shortlisted for the CBC Literary Prize in 2003 and he is the subject of a special issue of Prairie Fire, (Vol. 21, No. 1, May 2000). From October 2000 to April 2001 he was Writer in Residence at the Winnipeg Public library.

'Dimuendo' was awarded third prize in the Petra Kenney International Poetry Competition for 2005 and 'A Raft of Lilies' won second place in the MAC national poetry contest, 'Friends' (2007). He has performed his poems on the CBC, at numerous venues in Canada and the USA, and at the Olympics in Montreal.

His most recent publications are Dancing, with Mirrors (Porcupine's Quill, 2011), Tasting the Dark: New and Selected Poems (The Muses Company, an imprint of Gordon J. Shillingford Publishing, 2001), and Rumours of Paradise / Rumours of War (McClelland and Stewart, 1995).

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