A.F. Moritz's twenty-third book of poems originated with an impulse, beginning in April 2019, to write a series of continuous poems. The first goal was to keep them short. The second was to make them separate, in the process reflecting the whole of human life, stable in moments and bodies. In The Wren, Moritz arranges 70 short poems in a sort of galaxy: an apparent scatter, not of stars but of poems, of feeling-thoughts. What is the unity of these active "states" of ours, given that they do not simply follow, or hook onto, or neighbour, or echo one another in a chain of resemblance that seems to have gaps and missing links that reappear later, healed? The title was chosen partly to speak to Moritz's The Sparrow: Selected Poems (2018), but also because, among the many short poems of this collection, one of them asked to be central: a poem about a small bird that hops from within a thicket of stems to peer out at the poet for a second and then disappears back inside. This tiny story of a tiny fellow creature is the narrative, the "novel," of this book: a little story that is nonetheless one of the great and ever-retold stories.
In The Wren, A.F. Moritz arranges 70 short poems in a sort of galaxy: an apparent scatter, not of stars but of poems, of feeling-thoughts.
• THE MASTER OF METAPHOR: A.F. Moritz served as Toronto's Poet Laureate from 2019 to 2023. A three-time Governor General's Award nominee, recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, Griffin Poetry Prize Winner (The Sentinel; 2009), among many other honours, Moritz has solidified his place among the best lyric poets of his generation.
• POET AND MENTOR: As a professor at the University of Toronto for over 30 years, A.F. Moritz has mentored dozens of poets, helping to hone their craft and launching their careers. The impact of his generosity and mentorship is immeasurable.
