Night Work

Winner of the 2008 Winterset Award and the 2009 E.J. Pratt Poetry Prize Winner of the Kobzar Literary Award 2010 Shortlisted for the 2009 Heritage and History Book Award [Writers Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador] and longlisted for the Relit Award Globe 100 book in 2008 A hockey saga, wrapping the game's story in the "intense, moody, contradictory" character of Terry Sawchuk, one of its greatest goalies. In compact, conversational poems that build into a narrative long poem, Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems follows the tragic trajectory of the life and work of Terry Sawchuk, dark driven genius of a goalie who survived twenty tough seasons in an era of inadequate upper-body equipment and no player representation. But no summary touches the searching intensity of Maggs's poems. They range from meditations on ancient/modern heroism to dramatic capsules of actual games, in which the mystery of character meets the mystery of transcendent physical performance. Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems is illustrated with photographs mirroring the text, depicting key moments in the career of Terry Sawchuk, his exploits and his agony.