The Lease

(Paperback)

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Inspired largely by the poet's experiences as a young man working in the Saskatchewan oilfields, Mathew Henderson's "The Lease" explores masculinity and the roles morality, violence, and hard labor play in it. Equal parts character study, cultural documentary, and coming-of-age narrative, Henderson's poems make it clear that however we may try to stay apart from them, the stubborn and often unflattering realities of masculine culture persist, not just in isolated, dangerous environments like this, but in our very idea of what work is.

"No mark survives this place: you too will yield
to unmemory. Give everything you are
in three-day pieces. Watch the gypsy iron
move, follow its commands.
Tend the rusted steel like a shepherd."

Mathew Henderson lives in Toronto, Ontario, writes about the prairies, and teaches at Humber College. "The Lease" is his first collection of poetry.

Reviews

'The Lease cuts into its primary subjects -- grease, technology, physical labor, alienated sex, mud, fear, profound loneliness -- like a welder's oxyacetylene flame. [...] I've read more adept books of poetry than The Lease in the past six months, with more self-conscious chaos and precision wordplay. But I've read none that I was more eager to run through again in my mind.' -- Dwight Garner, The New York Times 'A sneakily brilliant, beautiful work ... Writing that's meant to be read, like light through ice, hard and clear and true. Try not to shield your eyes.' -- The Millions 'Henderson guides us through a hellish world of brutalized males and brutal violence, which he seems both repulsed by and attracted to. It's this dynamic that makes Henderson's poems extraordinary ... Anyone who cares about work and the ways it transforms workers must read this book.' - Rain Taxi 'The tactile beauty of Mathew Henderson's poems feels physically earned, carried across hard distances. We want to stay close to this voice we half-know and these lines, never burdened but speech-weighted, so carefully set down. The poems extend with great honesty a tradition of writing about the kind of working life that might kill you now or in time. What's drawn here are the unequal wages of hand and heart.' -- Michael Helm, author of Cities of Refuge 'The scale of Henderson's almost hallucinatory rendering of work in Saskatchewan's oilfields is as small as the moths that circle the flares and as cosmic as the industry's effects. The Lease crackles with perfectly pitched alarm at what human dominion does to our humanity.' -- Linda Besner, author of The Id Kid 'The tactile beauty of Mathew Henderson's poems feels physically earned, carried across hard distances. We want to stay close to this voice we half-know and these lines, never burdened but speech-weighted, so carefully set down. The poems extend with great honesty a tradition of writing about the kind of working life that might kill you now or in time. What's drawn here are the unequal wages of hand and heart.' -- Michael Helm, author of Cities of Refuge 'The scale of Henderson's almost hallucinatory rendering of work in Saskatchewan's oilfields is as small as the moths that circle the flares and as cosmic as the industry's effects. The Lease crackles with perfectly pitched alarm at what human dominion does to our humanity.' -- Linda Besner, author of The Id Kid

Author Bio

Mathew Henderson: Mathew Henderson is a recent grad of the University of Guelph's MFA program. Originally from Prince Edward Island, he now lives in Toronto, writes about the prairies and teaches at Humber College.