Stephen’s Bio:

Stephen Rowe was born in Heart’s Content, but now makes his home in Gander, NL. Recently, his poetry has appeared in such print journals as CV2, The Antigonish Review, The Toronto Quarterly, Iota, and Paragon, as well as in the online journals Rhythm Poetry Magazine, and Triggerfish Review. His first collection, Never More There, was released by Nightwood Editions in October 2009. He blogs at http://stephenrowe.ca/.

Publisher’s Note on Never More There:

How do we reconcile story with fact? What must one lose for the other to exist? In this debut collection, Rowe explores the nature of mythology and how it morphs in time to retain cultural and personal significance. Folk tales, supernatural creatures, family histories and personal elegies come together to expose the cohabitation of the dead and the living; the relationship between cold absence and stark presence.

Michael Crummey on Stephen Rowe: “Again and again while reading Never More There I was struck by arresting lines and images, by Stephen Rowe’s rigorous attention to the natural world and the world of words. Eloquent and passionate, Rowe is poet of real promise.”

Sample Poem from Never More There:

“The Wallet”

A gentle arc in leather, pocket-pressed,
curved sharply at the corners; weathered hide,
the tiny geometrics in the flesh
age-torn where seam and edge have creased. Inside:

a debit card, a Visa, MCP,
social insurance number, Blue Cross Care.
In a plastic flap, adjacent teacher ID,
he kept our faces in a family picture.

The day he drove himself along the shore
my mother, stirring in her seat, could hear
him talk of politics and not the tight

grip on his chest. And waiting for the doctor,
he didn’t say a word, but turned to her
with his wallet, yellow eyes and all their weight.

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