Happinesswise: Poems
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"Incisive, elegant and fierce, Bennett's Happinesswise tackles the most illusive and illusory aspects of our culture. It ranges widely in terms of style and theme, but will nonetheless leave readers with the distinct impression of having encountered something wholly real." -- Johanna Skibsrud, author of The Sentamentalists
"There is nothing like opening a book of poetry and feeling instantly at home . . . Jonathan Bennett is interested, as the title suggests, in our search for happiness, but he is equally curious about the other result. Bennett isn't afraid to let us in to the personal and a suite of poems about his autistic son is as jarring and sad as it is beautiful, hopeful and wise." -- Today's Book of Poetry
"The poems in the book's final two sections are technically accomplished, displaying Bennett's mastery of sound and phrasing. . . . [Happinesswise's] pleasures -- and there are many -- accumulate steadily throughout the book." -- The Malahat Review
"The poems in the book's final two sections are technically accomplished, displaying Bennett's mastery of sound and phrasing. . . . [Happinesswise's] pleasures -- and there are many -- accumulate steadily throughout the book." -- The Malahat Review
PRAISE FOR PREVIOUS WORKS
"Bennett's artistry lies in his ability to create poems that shatter complacency with bricks of loaded language." -- Quill & Quire on Civil and Civic
"Jonathan Bennett has cleverly and sensitively described the many types of love tested by war. The result is a rewarding and intensely moving read: deceptively gruelling, given its slim dimensions, but also -- like its heroine -- devastatingly beautiful." -- National Post on The Colonial Hotel
"A solid novel on morality in our not-quite-postcolonial world." -- Globe and Mail on The Colonial Hotel
"This short novel is at once lyrical and brutal, alluring in its spare, elegant prose and shocking in its honest portrayal of the realities of political corruption and duplicitous leadership. Bennett is able to demonstrate the timelessness of the themes of the original classic story in this contemporary setting, offering both emotional depth and universal truths about the human condition." -- Waterloo Region Record on The Colonial Hotel
"Bennett has presented a compelling, lyrical novel of love, suffering and reconciliation." -- Winnipeg Free Press on The Colonial Hotel
"Entitlement is an attractive read, and nicely covers a world that goes often uncovered in our own literatures." -- National Post
"Bennett's storytelling is effortless in its pace and time shifts, and his dialogue glints like a sharpened knife." -- The Walrus on Entitlement
