Table Manners follows Mosaic Press’s To Be Now: New and Selected, published in 2003. In this new volume, Windsor’s first poet laureate, Marty Gervais, turns his attention to the border stories of southwestern Ontario. The winner of the prestigious Harbourfront Prize and the Queen’s Jubilee Medal, Gervais writes about the flat open farm country outside of Windsor, but also about living and working in the shadow of Detroit. The table becomes the metaphor for all that takes place in a lifetime: the place of conversation, of creativity, work, sustenance, and of deal-making and relationships. Marty Gervais is an award-winning journalist, photographer, poet, playwright, historian, editor, and teacher. In 1998, he won the prestigious Toronto’s Harbourfront Festival Prize for his contributions to Canadian letters and to emerging writers. In 1996, he was awarded the Milton Acorn People’s Poetry Award for his book, Tearing Into A Summer Day. That book was awarded the City of Windsor Mayor’s Award for literature. Table Manners is the companion volume to To Be Now: new and selected poems 1989 – 2003 which was awarded the City of Windsor Mayor’s Award for literature. Marty was named the inaugural Poet Laureate of Windsor, Ontario.
