``What is included here is fabulous.'' -- Mary Shearman, Simon Fraser University -- Atlantis, 34.2, 2009, 201003 ``The quest for a wider audience for poetry may be quixotic, but this series makes a serious attempt to present attractive, affordable selections that speak to contemporary interests and topics that might engage a younger generation of readers. Yet it does not condescend, preferring to provide substantial and sophisticated poets to these new readers. At the very least, these slim volumes will make very useful introductory teaching texts in post-secondary classrooms because they whet the appetite without overwhelming.'' -- Paul Milton -- Canadian Literature, 193, Summer 2007, 201003 ``Blues and Bliss...[ is] put out...through the wonderful Laurier Poetry Series. The series aims to make the work of Canadian poets more accessible through a format in which a critic introduces 35 poems from across the career of a major poet. In this helpful volume, Jon Paul Fiorentino calls Clarke's voice `polyphonic,' that is, a unique blend of identities that includes blues singer, preacher, cultural critic, exile, Africadian, high modernist, spoken-word artist and Canadian poet.... The selection of poems which includes pieces from seven books, including the now Canadian-canonized Whylah Falls, is testament to the range of cadence and rhythm that makes up Clarke's multivocal range.'' -- Sonnet L'Abbé -- Globe and Mail, Feb. 14, 2009, 200902 ``In being removed from their original contexts, these poems shine anew. Viewed apart from the rest of the poems in Black, Letter to a Young Poet seems even stranger, a successful and disturbing piece of standalone verse that fusses the high modernism of Ezra Pound with frightening, dare I say, Stephen King-like imagery.... A welcome feature to the books in the Laurier Poetry Series are the autobiographical postscripts provided by the poets, a nice touch that will appeal to readers unfamiliar with the names behind the poetry.'' -- Christopher MacKinnon -- Chronicle Herald (Halifax), April 5, 2009, 200904