The Blue Hour Of The Day - Selected Poems

The Blue Hour of the Day – Selected Poems (2007) by Lorna Crozier. McClelland & Stewart. ISBN: 9780771024689. Condition: Good.

There is a particular time of day—just after the sun has slipped away but before darkness has fully committed itself—when the world seems to pause and consider its options. Birds become quieter, colours soften, ordinary objects take on unexpected importance, and even the neighbour who insists on mowing the lawn at inconvenient moments usually packs it in.

It is this fleeting interval that poets adore.

Lorna Crozier not only notices it, she names an entire collection after it.

The Blue Hour of the Day gathers together some of the finest work by one of Canada’s most celebrated contemporary poets, offering readers a generous selection from a career spent observing the extraordinary hidden inside the perfectly ordinary. Crozier has the rare gift of making a kitchen table, a field, a bird, a relationship or a passing memory seem quietly miraculous without ever lapsing into sentimentality.

This is considerably harder than it looks.

Many poets write about nature. Many write about memory. Many write about love, ageing, family, identity and the curious business of being alive. Crozier somehow manages to write about all of them while sounding entirely like herself. Her poems possess a warmth and clarity that invite rather than intimidate, and an intelligence that never feels the need to remind you how intelligent it is.

It is rather like meeting someone who happens to know an enormous amount about the world but is perfectly content to let you discover that for yourself over a leisurely cup of tea.

The title itself deserves admiration. "The blue hour" sounds faintly mystical, perhaps even slightly melancholic, but anyone who has ever stood outside on a summer evening knows exactly what it means. It is one of those moments that exists whether or not we have words for it. Poets, infuriatingly, tend to be the people who remember to write those words down before the rest of us wander back indoors looking for biscuits.

Crozier’s poems are wonderfully attentive. She notices birds not merely as birds but as neighbours. Gardens become places where memory quietly takes root alongside flowers. Domestic life acquires an unexpected dignity. Even loss is handled with remarkable grace—not diminished, but gently illuminated.

There is humour here too, often arriving so quietly that you only realise you’ve smiled halfway through the next poem. The collection understands one of life’s great truths: that seriousness and playfulness are not opposites but old companions who frequently arrive together.

As a Selected Poems, this volume performs one of literature’s most useful services. It allows readers to sample decades of a poet’s work without immediately committing themselves to several shelves of individual collections. Think of it as being introduced to someone’s greatest conversations before deciding you would quite like to hear the rest.

It is, if you like, the literary equivalent of a tasting menu—only with fewer tiny portions arranged artistically on oversized plates.

Published in 2007 by McClelland & Stewart, one of Canada’s most distinguished publishers, this edition celebrates a poet whose work has steadily earned both critical acclaim and devoted readers. It serves equally well as an introduction for newcomers or as a rewarding companion for those already familiar with Crozier’s remarkable voice.

This copy remains in good condition, preserving a thoughtful and beautifully produced collection that deserves to be read slowly, revisited often, and perhaps left on a bedside table where a single poem can provide unexpectedly good company before sleep.

From Crappy Old Books—because poetry occupies a curious niche in the world of second-hand books. Thrillers boast about twists. Histories promise revelations. Self-help books insist they can reinvent your life before Tuesday. Poetry merely sits there, modestly, waiting for someone willing to stop rushing for ten minutes. The Blue Hour of the Day rewards exactly that sort of reader. It won’t tell you how to become richer, thinner or more productive, but it might persuade you to look up at the evening sky on your way home and notice that peculiar blue light which has been appearing every day without asking for recognition. That’s not a bad return for a second-hand book in good condition. In fact, it may be one of the better bargains on the shelf.

Keep browsing: See more Poetry books Other books by Lorna Crozier