I’m a small bass fiddle,
cow-swallower,
king of the slime,
the plague’s first note.

Twenty-six tiny gems, these riddle poems pick up where the sequence of riddle poems in Dalton’s much lauded Red Ledger left off. In beautifully crafted language, they tease readers, making everyday things strange and new. Dalton is reaching back to an ancient riddling tradition, but also engaging in a more contemporary and local one: the oral traditions of her home, where riddles and language itself have long been a form of entertainment. Puzzling and rich, these poems are very much of their place, and are sure to delight and engage.

Two original wood engravings by Wesley W. Bates were commissioned for this book, as was an engraving of a press goat.

Mary Dalton was born in Lake View, Conception Bay, Newfoundland, and lives in St. John's, where she teaches English at the Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador. She is the author of four books of poetry, The Time of Icicles, Allowing he Light, Merrybegot, and Red Ledger. Merrybegot, published in the fall of 2003 by Véhicule Press, was shortlisted for the Winterset Award and the Pat Lowther Memorial Poetry Award, and won the 2004 E.J. Pratt Poetry Award; it was released as an audiobook by Rattling Books in 2005.

Wesley W. Bates was born in Whitehorse, Yukon and lives in Clifford, Ontario. He studied fine art at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, and has established himself as one of the country’s most celebrated and sought-after wood engravers. The Point of the Graver, published by Porcupine’s Quill in 1994, gives a fine introduction to Bates’s beautiful work. We are delighted to have three of his original wood engravings in this book.