"John Donlan's Reviews

John Donlan & The Dames
by Judith Fitzgerald (monstersandcritics.com, July 21, 2008)

Deep-felt tales of nature, a work of transformation
by Barbara Carey (Toronto Star, July 13, 2008)

The Last Three Poetry Books of my Year
by Lorette C. Luzajic (LiteraryAddict.wordpress.com - November 16, 2008)

The heart in love -- the heart in nature
by Bill Robertson (Saskatoon StarPhoenix, January 10, 2009)

Count on it
by Judith Fitzgerald (Globe and Mail, January 17, 2009)

Peter Richardson in Arc Poetry Magazine

John Donlan at Tree

Deep-felt tales of nature, a work of transformation

There's a species of aesthetic poise - we might call it musical intelligence - which comes about when discipline and surprise are working, not just in combination, but each for the other. I think of John Donlan's poems as wise acrobats, alive to the many weathers of the self but equally well-tuned to cityscape and landscape, performing athletic meditations inside a stillness they create for themselves. In Green Man we have a collection by one of our finest poets working at full stretch.
- Don McKay

Domestic Economy constitutes one of the most assured, as well as the most beautiful, depictions we have of postmodern Canada; nor is it easy to say which is the more astonishing: the easy command of everything philosophical and cultural that has gone into bringing about the postmodern or the intimacy and immediacy with which the daily facts of life in this country are brought to art. ... The effect is an exhilarating release into intelligence and inclusiveness - this is a poetry whose door is always open - without surrendering any of the luminous pleasure that comes from tight formal beauty.
- J. K. Snyder, The Antigonish Review

[I]ntelligent, articulate ... masterfully condensed style.
- Cary Fagan, The Globe and Mail

[S]kill with musical phrasing, line, and image.
- Mary Dalton, Books in Canada

[W]it, feeling, and linguistic acrobatics ... concise, taut.
- Mark Young, Scene

Thoroughly accomplished in the exact, on-going articulate rhythms of its long lines, its syntax full to the edge with an intelligence always breaking into surprise.
- Stephen Ratcliffe, Avenue B Press

th artikulaysyun uv layrs as midden as what is found thru succeedng layring n densitee uv being - exiting from the more mindid or wilful n narrow avenues of consciousness they detail n elaborate on th passages uv our lives ... pomes uv a veree hi ordring ... an artist is at work here ...
- bill bissett

Like Emily Dickinson on bad acid ... existential terror.
- Chris Faiers, Canadian Book Review Annual

Better than John Ashbery.
- David McFadden

[T]alented ... accomplished ... overtly metaphysical.
- Cary Fagan, The London Free Press

[I]mportant insights ... the speaker's voice is extremely likeable and is open and honest ... food for the soul.
- Jay Ruzesky, Event

[T]hematically controlled, a real achievement ... poems that merge life and place seamlessly ... tightly woven and well-polished ... gripping ... there's a poetic skill at work here, one that has proven itself.
- Quill and Quire