Chameleon Hours

The first collection of poems spanning the beloved Canadian poet's short but dazzling career. Elise Partridge’s poetry has been widely admired for its scrupulous truth to life and meticulous, glittering craft. Whether writing about family and friends, the natural world and the daily round, or serious illness, Partridge was, as Rosanna Warren has said, “a poet of brilliant precisions. Each line represents a new, glinting angle of thought. . . . The result is an art of eerie compassion and an almost hyper-realist perception of the small.” This new collection includes all the poems that Partridge prepared for publication during her lifetime as well as a selection of uncollected or unpublished poems.

From Ways of Going for Steve Will it be like paragliding— gossamer takeoff, seedlike drifting down into a sunlit, unexpected grove? Or ski-jumping—headlong soaring, ski-tips piercing clouds, crystal revelations astonishing my goggles? . . . . Skittery flicker of a glare-weary lizard startled into the sheltering wings of a leaf, rusting freighter with a brimming hold shimmering onto a crimson edge. . . . Sad rower pushed from shore, I'll disappear like circles summoned by an oar's dip. However I burn through to the next atmosphere, let your dear face be the last thing I see. Whether writing poems about North American life and landscape; or love poems; or elegies for family and friends; or poems on serious, debilitating illness and the transformations it can effect—Elise Partridge offers in Chameleon Hours words forged by suffering and courage. Full of wit and empathy, Partridge’s poems draw inspiration from sources as whimsical as tortoises and pontoons, as poignant as a homeless woman taking shelter inside a post office on a winter night, and as deeply personal as her own cancer diagnosis at a young age. Chameleon Hours is a book about the rewards of being reminded of one’s own mortality and the lyric expression of life in all its intensity. “In their ample, embracing, nuanced appetite for sensory experience, [Partridge’s] poems achieve an ardent, compassionate and unsentimental vision.”—Robert Pinsky, Washington Post “Partridge’s impressive poems pursue a careful thinker’s yearning for abandon, a loyal friend and partner’s wish for change. Attentive to fact, to what she sees and knows, Partridge nonetheless makes space for what is wild, outside and within us—for the fears and the blanks of chemotherapy, for sharp variations within (and without) frames of metre and rhyme, and for the welcome consistencies of married love. She has learned detail-work, and patience, from Elizabeth Bishop, but she has made other virtues her own: riffs on familiar phrases open startling vistas and even her love poems get attractively practical. Hers is a welcome invitation: let’s listen in.”—Stephen Burt “Reading Chameleon Hours, I find myself marveling at the luck of each heron, mosquito, field of Queen Anne’s Lace, each person, place, thing or circumstance in this beautiful book, to have Elise Partridge’s exquisite and precise attention. And how lucky we are to get to listen in as she offers each of them her flawless ear; the book is full of understated sonic gems like ‘a kickball straight into pink lilac.’ In ‘Chemo Side Effects: Memory,’ after describing ‘groping in the thicket’ for ‘the word I want . . . scrabbling like a squirrel on the oak’s far side,’ she tells us ‘I could always pull the gift / from the lucky-dip barrel; scoop the right jewel / from my dragon’s trove. . . .’ We of course already know this. It’s evident in every one of these poems.”—Jacqueline Osherow Praise for Fielder’s Choice “Partridge is a technical wizard for whom thinking and feeling are not separate activities. She is a hawk-like observer of the particular . . . many times ascending to pitch-perfect verse.”—Ken Babstock, Globe and Mail (Canada)

Chameleons are fascinating creatures-they have eyes capable of moving independently of one another, a projectile tongue that allows them to capture insects from a distance, and a prehensile tail that helps keep them stable when climbing trees and shrubs. The Essential Care of Chameleons is packed with everything you need to know on selecting, acclimating, housing, and feeding a chameleon. You'll also find a special section on caring for the more popular species, including tips on how to overcome problems with diseases and disorders. Whether you are just thinking about getting a chameleon or are an experienced breeder, this book offers the most up-to-date information on all your chameleon needs.

The one and only chameleon is world renowned for its ability to change its skin color rapidly (throughout movement of pigment cells) and for the outrageous length of its tongue (more than one and a half times its body length!). Relatives of agamids and iguanas, chameleons are insect-eating, tree climbing reptiles that have highly specialized needs. Written by a team of experienced herp experts, Chameleons intends to instruct keepers on how to best care for their chameleons and covers the four most commonly kept species: Jackson's chameleon with its prized triceratops horns on its head, panther chameleon with its spectacular coloration, veiled chameleon with its unusual casque on its head, and the rather large Parson's chameleon. The book subsequently is divided into four parts, each including an introduction and natural history, captive care, and reproduction of the species. Part I, Jackson's Chameleon was written by Sean McKeown; Part II, Panther Chameleon by Gary Ferguson, James B. Murphy, Achille Raselimanana, and Jean-Baptiste Ramanamanjato; Part III, Veiled Chameleon and Part IV, Parson's Chameleon by Kenneth Kalisch. References and index included.

Elise Partridge’s The Exiles’ Gallery extends the range of her widely acclaimed earlier books, Fielder’s Choice and Chameleon Hours, praised as “first-rate” (James Pollock) for their “authenticity” (Stephanie Bolster) and “brilliant precisions that reflect life’s plenitude” (Rosanna Warren). Widely praised for her engagement and her attention to craft, Elise Partridge’s The Exiles’ Gallery confirms her standing as one of the most thoughtful, authentic voices in contemporary poetry. The poems in her third collection continue to explore what she has called “implicit questions about fullness of life or lives somehow thwarted, diminished, ended too early.” Through formal technique, painterly detail or her signature compressed directness, Partridge’s poems explore the past, present and future with compassion and grief, bearing witness to our not-so-still, all-too-brief lives. Above all, The Exiles’ Gallery is a book of celebration. In these restless, nimble, and complex poems of apprehension — whether by a candid glance backward at childhood or through tributes to friends — Partridge’s arresting images and diction give shape to the complexity and abundance of experience, made more luminous and gilt-edged by the corridor of encroaching shadows. Dispossessed but defiant, these are songs of preservation and love.

A compelling look into damaged minds, The Chameleon's Shadow is a psychological thriller from crime queen Minette Walters. When Lieutenant Charles Acland is flown home from Iraq with serious head injuries, he faces not only permanent disfigurement but also an apparent change to his previously outgoing personality. Crippled by migraines, and suspicious of his psychiatrist, he begins to display sporadic bouts of aggression, particularly against women, especially his ex-fiancee who seems unable to accept that the relationship is over. After his injuries prevent his return to the army, he cuts all ties with his former life and moves to London. Alone and unmonitored, he sinks into a private world of guilt and paranoid distrust . . . until a customer annoys him in a Bermondsey pub and he attracts the attention of local police investigating three murders which appear to have been motivated by extreme rage . . . Under suspicion, Acland is forced to confront the real issues behind his isolation. How much control does he have over the dark side of his personality? Do his migraines contribute to his rages? Has he always been the duplicitous chameleon that his ex-fiancee claims? And why – if he hates women – does he look to a woman for help?