Who elected George Bowering as our Poet Laureate of Canada? Nobody asks. With 50 books and counting, George Bowering is always onto his next enthusiasm-and nobody can keep pace. The first person to question the appointment might well be hawkish American ambassador to Canada, Paul Cellucci. Given the current chill in Canada/U.S. relations, Cellucci and the Bush regime won't be amused to learn Canada's official literary representative has just published a history of Canada that has, according to its publishing hype, an 'openly anti-American stance.'

Bowering's Stone Country (Penguin $16.99) comes replete with baseball box scores, woolly mammoths, an imaginary meeting between George Vancouver and Alexander Mackenzie, cut 'n' paste cover art and headings like Get Riel. Recently retired from SFU, the post-modernite Okanaganite took some time out from the national spotlight in February to celebrate Roy Miki's Governor General's Award for Poetry. Both men are prominently featured in the SFU Special Collections library where longtime director Ralph Stanton has been replaced by Eric Swanick from New Brunswick. Stanton went across town to UBC.

[SUMMER 2003 BCBW]