Regeneration Machine

Twenty years ago Nevin Sample walked into a small bank in Deep Cove, robbed a teller at gunpoint and fled into the forest of Cates Park. After a lengthy pursuit, he hid behind a stump at the edge of a small clearing. The police called to him. He raised the gun to his head and pulled the trigger.

Nevin had a magnetism, an understated complexity: there were those who loved him, resented him, found him gregarious. To Joe Denham, he was an old, close friend. Regeneration Machine is a 100-stanza, 9,000-word letter-in-verse to Nevin's ghost--a requiem, elegy, lament; a sort of flailing attempt to make sense of the nonsensically violent way that a non-violent, caring, intelligent young man chose to end his life.

Prize(s): Winner Canadian Authors Association Award for Poetry (2016)
Short-listed Governor General's Award for Poetry (2016) 

"Regeneration Machine is what I long for in poetry: sustained, careful aesthetic consideration, human emotion, and specificity of experience." ~ Micheline Maylor, Quill & Quire (starred review)

"This is a fierce, haunting book." ~ The Toronto Star


"Regeneration Machine is a sane and sober love letter that after twenty years finally says goodbye to a friend. It's burning Nevin Sample's fishing boat and setting it out to sea."
PRISM International
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