Field Notes for the Self

Field Notes for the Self is a series of dark meditations: spiritual exercises in which the poem becomes a forensics of the soul. The poems converse with Patrick Lane, John Thompson, and Charles Wright, but their closest cousins may be Arvo Pärt's tintinnabulations—overlapping structures in which notes or images are rung slowly and repeatedly like bells. The goal is freedom from illusion, freedom from memory, from "the same old stories" of Lundy's violent past; and freedom, too, from the unreachable memories of the violence done to his Indigenous ancestors, which, Lundy tells us, seem to haunt his cellular biology. Rooted in exquisitely modulated observations of the natural world, the singular achievement of these poems is mind itself, suspended before interior vision like a bit of crystal twisting in the light. "Dispassionate yet impassioned, stark yet bristling with images, the poems encompass contradiction and expansion." — Arc Poetry Magazine Praise for Randy Lundy: "Here is a poet of whom one can say—quietly, simply, with gratitude—that highest of praises: the real thing." — Jane Hirshfield, author of The Beauty "Randy Lundy has entered the place where the masters reside…" — Patrick Lane, author of Washita

"Dispassionate yet impassioned, stark yet bristling with images, the poems encompass contradiction and expansion." -- Arc Poetry Magazine, "Here is a poet of whom one can say -- quietly, simply, with gratitude -- that highest of praises: the real thing." -- Jane Hirshfield, author of The Beauty, "Randy Lundy has entered the place where the masters reside" -- Patrick Lane, author of Washita, Winner, SK Arts Poetry Award Honouring Anne Szumigalski. 2021 Winner, Regina Public Library Book of the Year Award Honouring Mary Sutherland, 2021 Finalist, High Plains Book Award, 2021 Shortlisted, Saskatchewan Book Awards, Indigenous Peoples' Publishing, 2020 Shortlisted, Saskatchewan Book Awards, Book of the Year, 2020

Randy Lundy is a member of the Barren Lands (Cree) First Nation. Born in northern Manitoba, he has lived most of his life in Saskatchewan. He has published three previous books, Under the Night Sun , Gift of the Hawk , and Blackbird Song . An award-winning poet, his work has been widely anthologized.