A young boy stands beneath an air raid siren in the twentieth year of the Cold War. The long cold persists, as does the engagement. Hammers and Bells is subjective biography, a lyric response to life drawing upon nature, human history and the poet-witnesses who found beauty in the depths of its apparent absence. There is also a cross-current at work, a blend of the carnal and the spiritual, something perhaps attributable to a uniquely Slavic perception of the world.

Hammers and Bells is a feast of soul language, with poems full of moments that stop breath and leave us wonderstruck. There is something old, rich and deep here, rising from a river of Slavic mysticism, and sweeping us up in grand adventure. Like the protagonist in "The Last Dress He Gave Her," we cannot turn away from the call to gather up all our human capacity for love and ride out into the dark with it, whatever peril or doom awaits. What more can you ask from a book of poems?
Anna Marie Sewell, Edmonton Poet Laureate 2011 - 2013

Randy Kohan studied History at the Universities of Regina and Alberta. His poetry has appeared in Writing the City: Poets Laureate of Edmonton, 2005-2013 and the Canadian Russian News. He lives in Edmonton with his wife and their two sons. Hammers and Bells is his first collection of poetry.

Below: "Northern Monks" from Hammers and Bells, filmed by Hans Olson and Randy Kohan.