Histories

Histories is an eclectic and unusual poetry debut from the author of the creative non-fiction work Wardlife: The Apprenticeship of a Young Writer as a Hospital Clerk published to acclaim in 1999. From medical history to family history, Histories reveals a poet of multiple personas and postures.

Steinmetz chooses clinical medical history to render sympathetic minimalist portraits of the sick and dying. These dramas, spoken between clinicians, are no less than the public screening of private lives. Histories plays like an ensemble of voices - wry, philosophical, and romantic.

The clinical jargon of Steinmetz's "medical histories" yields effects that are waggishly eccentric and sometimes quite moving. Carmine Starnino, Montreal Review of Books

Author Bio: As a singer-songwriter, Andrew Steinmetz performed and recorded with Weather Permitting and The Good Cookies-two independent rock bands. His poetry has been published in The Fiddlehead, The Antigonish Review, Prairie Fire, The New Quarterly, and Poetry New York. He now divides his time between the Westmount Public Library, where he is a reference librarian, and the Montreal Neurological Hospital where he manages a patient information resource centre. He lives in Montreal.