Michael Ondaatje's Series: the Cinnamon Peeler
About This Novel
The Cinnamon Peeler is a collection of poems spanning twenty-seven years. They were all written in the gaps between the full-length works - "The Complete Works of Billy the Kid", "Aftermath", "Generations" and "In Lion's Skin". It started in 1963, the beginning of my writing career, and finally in 1990. "The Elimination Dance" appears here as an interlude, and can be regarded as the work of a rogue troubadour, and its final appearance is constantly changing - a few lines are deleted or added every year. The content is based on a horrific dance form, with the caller deciding who can continue dancing in a seemingly arbitrary process. So this thing (I still hesitate to call it poetry) simulates a crazy, completely unconventional shouter. Two of the poems in this section of "Worldly Love"-"Neighbors on the River" and "Letter from the Pacific"-are based on poems by Li Bai and Du Fu that were reinvented by Ezra Pound. It is not a translation, but a transplant. Several fragments of the predecessor poets appear in my poems. Most of the poems in the collection were written in Canada. Several were written in Sri Lanka. "Tin Roof" was painted in Hawaii. Knife Skills is dedicated to Kim and Quentin Griffin. This part of "Worldly Love" is dedicated to Linda.
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