Gimp Crow

A quirky little set of rhymes about a crow with a bad leg blossoms into a free-flying grace of words as the clumsy bird tears free from his boring life in the prairies and his nagging “ol lady” in search of a bigger destiny. Along the way, Gimp Crow collects a magpie from Alberta and a raven from the West Coast, and learns about love and loss. This collection takes Turnstone Press back to its original poetry roots in the grand (or rather modest) tradition of Dennis Cooley, evoking prairie simplicity of language and an unpretentious approach to the age-old themes of self-discovery and yearning for a different life. Gimp Crow speaks to the reader, establishing his feisty nature, to a degree anthropomorphized into a discontented man, but still a wild crow at one­—or at odds—with the hard facts of life for urban wildlife. Kowal effectively captures the character of wild birds trapped in cityscapes, exhibiting sharp observation of the exterior world, while simultaneously capturing the heart of the captive human. Evoking dust-bowl prairie, Hank Williams songs of yearning, and a simple, but meaningful life, Kowal’s story poems bring to life a character that speaks to the heart of any prairie-dweller. Turns of phrase and constant, light-hearted word play make this collection enjoyable to read and accessible to non-poetry readers.