George Murray (born 1971), is a
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...
and the current poet laureate of
St. John's,
Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic Canada, Atlantic region. The province comprises t ...
.
Murray was the editor of the literary blog Bookninja.com,
a contributing editor at ''
Maisonneuve'' magazine, and a contributing editor at several literary magazines and journals. After several years abroad in rural
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
and
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, in 2005 he returned to Canada. He now lives in St. John's.
Murray's 2007 book, ''The Rush to Here'', a sequence of 57 sonnets, reworks a number of traditional forms (Petrarchan, Spenserian, Shakesperian sonnets) into a new rhyme scheme that employs what the poet refers to as "thought-rhyme", conceptual and semantic pairings that work on the level of
synonym,
antonym and
homonym
In linguistics, homonyms are words which are homographs (words that share the same spelling, regardless of pronunciation), or homophones ( equivocal words, that share the same pronunciation, regardless of spelling), or both. Using this definiti ...
to create intertextual meaning, as opposed to the sound bonding of traditional aural rhyme.
Murray's 2010 book of aphorisms, ''Glimpse'', was a Canadian bestseller.
His 2012 book, ''Whiteout'', contained a poem titled ''Song For Memory'', first published in ''The New Welsh Review'', that was adapted by the band
The Once
The Once is a folk trio based in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. The group features Geraldine Hollett on lead vocals and vocalist-instrumentalists Phil Churchill and Andrew Dale playing a variety of instruments. The group performs a mix of ori ...
for their 2011 album ''Row Upon Row of the People They Know'' (a phrase taken from the poem).
Bibliography
* ''Carousel''. Toronto: Exile, 2000.
* ''The Cottage Builder's Letter''. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2001.
* ''The Hunter''. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2003.
* ''A Set of Deadly Negotiations''. Victoria: Frog Hollow Press, 2006.
* ''The Rush to Here''. Vancouver: Nightwood Editions, 2007.
* ''Glimpse: Selected Aphorisms''. Toronto: ECW Press, 2010.
* ''Whiteout''. Toronto: ECW Press, 2012.
* ''Diversion''. Toronto: ECW Press, 2015.
* ''QUICK: Aphorisms''. Toronto: ECW Press, 2017.
References
Canadian bloggers
21st-century Canadian poets
Living people
1971 births
Writers from St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador
Canadian male poets
21st-century Canadian male writers
Canadian male non-fiction writers
Male bloggers
Poets Laureate of places in Canada
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