The Cinnamon Peeler (16 page)

Two poems in
Secular Love
, ‘The River Neighbour’ and ‘Pacific Letter’, are based on the Rihaku-Tu Fu-Ezra Pound poems. They are not so much translations as re-locations into my landscape, with a few lines by the earlier poets making their appearance in my poem.

Most of these poems were written in Canada. A few were written in Sri Lanka. Tin Roof was written in Hawaii.

Trick with a Knife
was dedicated to Kim and Quintin and Griffin. And
Secular Love
was dedicated to Linda.

MICHAEL ONDAATJE

Michael Ondaatje
The Cinnamon Peeler

Michael Ondaatje is a novelist and poet who lives in Toronto, Canada. He is the author of
The English Patient, In the Skin of a Lion, Coming Through Slaughter
, and
The Collected Works of Billy the Kid;
two other collections of poems,
Secular Love
and
There’s a Trick with a Knife I’m Learning to Do;
and a memoir,
Running in the Family
. He received the Booker Prize for
The English Patient
.

PROSE

The English Patient
1992

In the Skin of a Lion
1987

Running in the Family
(memoir)
1982

Coming Through Slaughter
1976

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid
1970

POETRY

The Cinnamon Peeler: Selected Poems
1991

Secular Love
1984

There’s a Trick with a Knife
I’m Learning to Do: Poems 1963–1978
1979

HANDWRITING

Poems

Handwriting
is Michael Ondaatje’s first new book of poetry since
The Cinnamon Peeler
. It is a collection of exquisitely crafted poems of delicacy and power—poems about love, landscape, and the sweep of history set in the poet’s first home, Sri Lanka. Ondaatje writes of desire and longing, the curve of a bridge against a woman’s foot, the figure of a man walking through a rainstorm to a tryst. The falling away of culture is juxtaposed with an individual’s sense of loss, grief, and remembrance as Ondaatje weaves a rich tapestry of images—the unburial of stone Buddhas, a family of stilt-walkers crossing a field, the pattern of teeth marks on skin drawn by a monk from memory.

Handwriting
is a poetic achievement by a writer at the height of his creative powers. In it, we are reminded once again of Michael Ondaatje’s unique artistry with language and of his stature as one of the finest poets writing today.

Poetry/0-375-70541-4

VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL
Available at your local bookstore, or call toll-free to order:
1-800-793-2665 (credit cards only).

THE ENGLISH PATIENT

“Sensuous, mysterious, rhapsodic, it transports the reader to another world.”

—
San Francisco Chronicle

Now a major motion picture, starring Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, and Kristin Scott Thomas. During the final moments of World War II, four damaged people come together in a deserted Italian villa. As their stories unfold, a complex tapestry of image and emotion is woven, leaving them inextricably connected by the brutal circumstances of the war.

Fiction/Literature/0-679-74520-3

RUNNING IN THE FAMILY

“With a prose style equal to the voluptuousness of its subject and a sense of humor never too far away,
Running in the Family
is sheer reading pleasure.”

—
Washington Post Book World

In the late 1970s, Michael Ondaatje returned to his native country of Sri Lanka. Recording his journey through the druglike heat and intoxicating fragrances of the island, Ondaatje simultaneously retraces the baroque mythology of his Dutch-Ceylonese family.

Memoir/Literature/0-679-74669-2

COMING THROUGH SLAUGHTER

“A novelist with the heart of a poet.”

—
Chicago Tribune

This novel brings to life the fabulous, colorful panorama of New Orleans in the first flush of the jazz era; it is the story of Buddy Bolden, the first of the great trumpet players, some say the originator of jazz, who was a genius, a guiding spirit, and the king of that time and place.

Fiction/Literature/0-679-76785-1

ALSO AVAILABLE
:

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid
/Fiction/Literature/0-679-76786-X
In the Skin of a Lion
/Fiction/Literature/0-679-77266-9

VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL
Available at your local bookstore, or call toll-free to order:
1-800-793-2665 (credit cards only).