Monks' Fruit

In his debut poetry collection, A.J. Levin presents a world in which the past overlays our modern existence, where classical allusions and philosophical observation are married to slapstick humour and carnival: Plato is a blues singer, Tantalus is a prospector in BC, and Descartes wanders around a Montreal amusement park. Monks' Fruit is above all a work of faith. Redemption lies in humour, imagination, curiosity and knowledge, though not in organized religion: Lazarus is reborn through his love, even extinct species have a second life when we remember them, but a parking lot is death itself. Levin guides us not just through time but through place-a cramped Istanbul apartment, brown Mexican fields, noisy Toronto restaurants, and through England, Brazil, the American South. And everywhere is a "place filled with the poem / of human architecture," a land made real by the ability to love and remember.