
The Poet is a Radio
Jack Hannan
April 2016
Li Bai has journeyed across the world and perhaps across centuries. When he comes across a bag of money in a downtown parking lot, we also meet the delinquent who lost the bag of money in the first place. The assemblage in Jack Hannan’s first novel are driven by wordsmithery, trickery, and flights of such fancy—for an instant, the signal comes in clearly, and we might all step into this world where anything is possible.
SHORTLISTED for the 2016 QWF Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction
Jack Hannan is the author of three books of poetry. In 2011, Some Frames was shortlisted for the QWF A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry. He has worked for many years in the world of books, both as a bookseller and in publishing. He lives with his family in Montreal, where he works for McGill-Queen’s University Press. The Poet Is a Radio, his first novel, was shortlisted for the QWF Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction.
“What if the world were composed of poets? In The Poet Is a Radio the question arises. Money and love, avarice and sensibility are arrested in an ebb and flow of linguistic and essential delights, as poets and poetic souls encounter one another, coping with our time and place. Jack Hannan demonstrates how poetic sensibility alters the electric current of the world.” —Trevor Ferguson