From his first book, The Visible Man ("as fine a first volume of poetry as one is ever likely to read" - the Dalhousie Review), to his most recent, Resurrection In the Cartoon ("passionate, humorous, worldly-wise, kick-ass poetry" - The Vancouver Sun), Robert Priest's poetry has been the delight of critics and readers alike. Blue Pyramids: New and Selected Poems brings together the best of Robert Priest's six books of lyric poems, spells, psalms, aphorisms, koans, diatribes, and prose poems along with an exciting new group of poems and aphorisms. Also included is a selection of never-before-published song lyrics. Relentless in their assessment of contemporary culture, the mordant irony, brutal honesty, and remarkable sensitivity of Priest's works create a poetic crucible in which the Canadian "melting-pot" is purified of its hypocrisies and reclaimed, ultimately, in the joy of language. Poetry full of flashes of insight. Imaginative in a strange way, he takes inordinate chances with logic, countering absurdity with absurdity, and expanding our sense of human emotional possibilities. - The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature The late Libby Scheier accurately described Robert Priest as a poet in the "bardic" tradition. Indeed he is one of the few Canadian artists who has been successful as both a writer and a musician. A fabulist in the tradition of Cortazar and Borges, a composer of lush love poems, and a widely quoted aphorist, he is the author of fourteen books and numerous recordings. His words have been debated in the legislature, posted in the transit system, quoted by politicians, and widely published in textbooks and anthologies all across the Americas. His aphorisms have found their way into The Farmer's Almanac and Colombo's Canadian Quotations while a song he wrote for rock diva Alannah Myles, "Song Instead of a Kiss," was a number one hit. Robert is also a beloved children's author. His songs and poems are widely played on Sesame Street. As a songwriter he has worked with the likes of Alanis Morissette, Melanie Doane, and Tom Cochrane, and his own cd of songs and poems, Tongue'n Groove, is set to be re-released this spring on emi's Heritage Artists. Robert travels widely in the service of poetry but always returns to Toronto where he continues to write his "passionate, cocky alternately adoring and insulting verse."
