Here Compton is at the head of a poetic procession, a guide leading readers through a house affected by both daily life and the extraordinary - stopping only to take in the change of seasons and prepare the outside yard for it. With one breath, she tells of life and death, with the next, play and metaphysics, joy and heartbreak. She is a guide like no other, accomplished and versatile, leading by example and from a distance at the same time.
"A warm collection, as Compton uses the architectural details of home and heart to evoke presences now gone."
- Winnipeg Free Press
"Compton, whose first collection, Opening the Island, won the Atlantic Poetry Prize, returns with a rigorously intelligent work about the pains and glories of life and nature."
- The Globe and Mail
"[Anne Compton has not only proven herself to be an important Maritime writer, but has sealed her reputation as having an integral voice in Canadian literature. As with Opening the Island, she has outdone herself by creating a followup in Processional that leads readers through a house sharing her interpretation of the daily grinds of living, loving and dying while pausing to reflect on the changing of the seasons. Veteran lovers of poetry will enjoy this book in its entirety. To novices, I would seriously recommend Processional. They will be enlightened, entertained and educated beyond their expectation."
- The Daily Gleaner
"She is scholarly and elegant, her spine straight as an English schoolteacher's; she slouches in her chair and orders a beer with the gusto and relief of a working man. the poetry she writes hides layer upon layer of meaning; she is open and direct, asking as many questions as she, well, evades. She is sharp, she is ruthless; she is kind and always, always, hospitable. Compton's language is like the poet herself, spare but beautiful, inviting you to take a closer look, to see what might lie behind the simple facade."
- New Brunswick Telegraph Journal
Governor General's Award Winner for Poetry
"Anne Compton's Processional is both a still-life and a tableau, with moments of perfect stillness and of passionate arrival. This book skillfully marries history to the present, and pulls the everyday into light."
— Governor General Jury's Comments
Winner of the 2006 Atlantic Poetry Prize
Shortlisted for the 2006 Pat Lowther Memorial Award
Updates Available: Updates Available: Update available for Picture Gallery Module