About the Book In Uncharted Heart are poems about formed and unformed spaces rarely seen in previous work by Cyril Dabydeen. Rhythms and feelings extend boundaries to a wider more intricate world, as the poems aim for epiphanies in awakeing to mythologies by delving into the inner recesses of our beings. In this significant new collection changing tonalities are everywhere in response to geography and history, everything deriving from the many spaces working through Dabydeen´s complex imagination. Here are poems of a genuinely felt passion and honesty, the images coming to us couched in spare language as the personal voice breaks free by eschewing fancy image-making. Beliefs about destiny and journeying are spontaneously expressed, even if elegiac, but always with love and a deep understanding. Uncharted Heart confirms Dabydeen´s place as a unique voice in Canadian writing.

Cyril Dabydeen´s poetry has appeared in over 60 magazines, including The Critical Quarterly (UK), Canadian Forum, The Fiddlehead, Canadian Literature, Prism International, Grain, The Antigonish Review, Kunapipi (Australia), Wasafiri, and World Literature Today (US), and in many anthologies such as the Oxford, Penguin, and Heinemann books of Caribbean Verse. A former Poet Laureate of Ottawa, he has been nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize (US), among others. He has read widely across Canada, the US, UK and Europe, the Caribbean (including Cuba and Jamaica), and Asia. His varied work-experiences include activism in social issues; he currently teaches writing in the Department of English, University of Ottawa.

About the Author Praise for Cyril Dabydeen

"… a mature and established voice … His themes range from the history and myth of countries as far apart as Greece, Mexico and Ireland, to a confessional vein recounting the joys and trials of throes of love and family affairs …. a fascinating writer to explore."
—British Journal of Canadian Studies

"He has the rhythms of Al Purdy …. His discussions of the life of an immigrant are subtle and moving, and the distinctions he makes between knowledge and wisdom, in the context of place and placelessness, and transformative.""
—ARC magazine