The Good Life

City of Vancouver’s Poet Laureate for 2009-2011

In 1999 Brad Cran exploded onto the Canadian literary scene with the release of Hammer & Tongs, a milestone anthology of the country’s newest generation of poets. It became the bestselling book in the history of the Vancouver International Writers Festival and was followed by a cross-Canada tour with sold-out shows in Calgary, Toronto and Victoria. In 2001, he co-edited the innovative anthology Why I Sing the Blues, a book/CD project that featured three generations of North America’s most prominent poets writing blues lyrics.

The Good Life is the long awaited first full-length book of poems by one of Canada’s most exciting new poets. From the glorious excesses of North American life to the mechanical bleakness that it often depends on, The Good Life is an unapologetic examination of our cultural and human vices. With deft precision, Cran exposes the good life’s underbelly and its motives to surround us in buzzing monotony, to oust spirituality and purity and replace them with sharp steel and vertigo, and finally to swallow us whole.

As a publisher and literary impresario Brad Cran has established a national reputation as one of Canada’s most successful promoters of new poetry. The Good Life is a landmark book by a poet and cultural activist who has already changed how poetry is perceived in Canada.