Poetry Hotel: Selected Poems 1963-85

Don Precosky teaches English at the College of New Caledonia and is the
co-editor of Four Realities: Poets of Northern B.C.

Joe Rosenblatt describes his poetry far more eloquently than I can in “Epilogue: A Poetry Manifesto” (p.94): “THE ANIMALS HAVE GIVEN ME INNUMERABLE EYE ORGASMS. I’VE TRIED TO IMITATE THEIR BIOLOGICAL SENSE DANCES...THE ELECTRIC MOMENTS...THE SUDDEN FORNICATIONS...THE OLFACTORY ATTACKS.” Like Layton and bill bissett, he’s a high-energy writer who draws his power from the natural life forces around him. Rosenblatt can see the erotic in a field of grain or a clump of clover or a frog pond. His poetry is like the bee, one of his favourite subjects: it hums and it forages, finding nectar in even the most unpromising fields. What he finds he distills for us, and it’s sweet.