LITERARY REVIEWS

“A master poet, eloquent and erudite” – CBC • “Relentless beauty and provocation… pure sentience and godlike laughter.” – A.F. Moritz • “The silent prince of words… with a single sentence of Jeff’s you are filled with the depth and joy of not only literature, but of life itself.” – Mercan Dede, Istanbul • “A ferocious subversion of cliches…an impressive emotional and metaphysical reach.” Desmond Maxwell, Ireland • “…a ruthless truth-telling poet…a tour de force” Poetry Australia • “The kind of poem that should not have been able to be written…” Gary Geddes • “…a display of verbal pyrotechnics such as I’ve never seen before” Irving Layton • “…an astonishing lyricist” – George Elliott Clarke • “another Walt Whitman has taken root in Canada” – George Whitman of Shakespeare and Company, Paris • “his poetry crackles with prophetic energy”  – Canadian Literature • “This is like watching lightning, strike after strike of lightning” – Barry Callaghan • “Poetry that induces a state of reverie” – Varsity Review • “…strongly crafted with a mature serious voice” – The Georgia Straight • “…hailed as ‘another Ginsberg'” –  Globe and Mail • “…lucid and intelligent” – Stephen Forster, Printed Matter, Japan • “pristine…(his) precise language and metrics do their job”  – Quill and Quire • “…epic in proportion and bound for posterity” – Graffito, University of Ottawa • “powerful and controlled…its sparse economy, is its beauty” – Kingston Whig-Standard • “At the end of the millennium, a clear and authentic voice” REC, Belgrade • intelligent observations that force the reader to think twice about his place, meager though it may be, in this rapidly changing world.” McGill Daily • “Brutal and direct. It slammed us in the belly.” – Steven Driscoll and Matt Bahen • “Potent and persuasive”  – City Lights, San Francisco • “…a major voice has emerged” Poetry Canada • “A great poet” – Simon Green, Bele Ile France • “I had the rare fortune to work with the great Canadian poet Jeff Bien, who it has been said is the new (Whitman) or Allan Ginsberg” – Sophie Reverdi, London • “A dedication as all-consuming and as unique in its expressions as any Van Gogh or Rodin or Rilke.” – Chris Dutton • “ the images are weightless, floating like Mohammed Ali’s metaphorical butterflies … who wouldn’t kill to write those words?” – Linda Rogers •