Night Work

Poetry. In compact, conversational poems that build into a narrative long poem, Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems follows the tragic trajectory of the life and work of Terry Sawchuk, dark driven genius of a goalie who survived twenty tough seasons in an era of inadequate upper-body equipment and no player representation. But no summary touches the searching intensity of Maggs's poems. They range from meditations on ancient/modern heroism to dramatic capsules of actual games, in which the mystery of character meets the mystery of transcendent physical performance. Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems is illustrated with photographs mirroring the text, depicting key moments in the career of Terry Sawchuk, his exploits and his agony.

"Through his marvelous, moving poetry, Randall Maggs gets closer than any biographer to the heart of the darkest, most troubled figure in the history of the national game. This may be the truest hockey book ever written. It reaches a level untouched by conventional sports literature... His Sawchuk is real."

—Stephen Brunt

Randall Maggs is the author of Timely Departures (poetry, 1994), and co-editor of two anthologies pairing Newfoundland and Canadian poems with those of Ireland. He is artistic director of Newfoundland's March Hare festival of music and literature, and teaches literature at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, Memorial University.