Dirges & Doggerel — David Slater

The author began writing narrative verse while scarcely into his teens. This collection encompasses his experiences in war-torn Rhodesia in the sixties and seventies, as well as many tableaux of a purely Canadian nature. They range from 'A visit to the circus', and the trials and tribulations of an old dancing horse, to his 'In the Garden' a paean to gardening in North Vancouver. His songs, a number of which can be heard and seen on Youtube via the attached hyper-links, range from a fun-filled 'Martini Man' to 'The Prisoner', a song about race-bias in the North American justice system. His ballad 'The Last voyage of the Rosy Claire' has echoes of Gordon Lightfoot's Edmund Fitzgerald, but with a west coast setting. The song was inspired by the sinking of the BC Ferries' ship Queen of the North.