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Legendary poet and video artist Tom Konyves presents his long awaited new book of poems Perfect Answers to Silent Questions. His work as a video artist has enriched his work as his poetry is both visually articulate and expressively cinematic. A precise rendering of literary archetypes and informed perceptions, including dadaism and surrealism, found poems, photo poems, haiku and language poetry, these poems are a journey through modernity. A faithful tribute to the unsayable, Perfect Answers to Silent Questions layers the perfect answers with the lingering insistence of unsaid questions.
In his first poetry collection since Sleepwalking Among the Camels: New and Selected Poems appeared in 1998, the meditations that make up Vancouver poet Tom Konyves’ Perfect Answers to Silent Questions are, in turns, heartfelt, surreal and playful, and explore voice, loss and a variety of questions, as well as a life spent wrestling with poetry, and an ongoing influence of the French Surrealists. If you have been wondering what Konyves has been up to all these years, now you know. ~ rob mclennan
These poems are refreshingly straightforward and readable, word morsels that focus us down and ring in our minds’ ears. A film-maker by day, a poet by night, Tom Konyves gives us elegant moments poised between tongue-tip and camera lens. In a medium too often choked up by obscurity and pretension, his writing is refreshing sparse, clear, and memorable. There is a surprising variety of form and approach among these shapely and pointed pieces, but all exhibit a consistency of quality that underlies the strength of this collection. ~ Lionel Kearns
Born in Budapest and based in Montreal until 1983, Tom Konyves is one of the original seven poets dubbed The Vehicule Poets, a group influenced by the avant-garde literature movements and the artistic innovations of the times. His poetry collections include: Love Poems (Asylum Publishing), No Parking (Vehicule Press 1978); Poetry in Performance (The Muses Company, 1982); Ex Perimeter (Caitlin Press, 1988) and Sleepwalking Among the Camels (The Muses Company, 1995). His surrealist novella OOSOOM (Out Of Sight Out Of Mind) was published by Bookthug Books (2007). Since 2006, he has been teaching screenwriting, video production, journalism and creative visual writing courses at the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, BC.
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