Mogul Recollected

In 1836 an elephant drowned off the coast of New Brunswick. Poet Richard Outram explores the significance of this bizarre occurrence in his brilliant new volume of poetry, Mogul Recollected.

These witty and profound poems recreate the dismal conditions of Mogul''s existence before he plunged to his death during a ship fire. Some are told from the point of view of Mogul himself, others from the perspective of ruthless trainers and circus owners. Recasting the tragedy as an inversion of the Noah''s Ark story, Outram delineates with startling clarity man''s betrayal of beast.

Outram was born in Canada in 1930. He was a graduate of the University of Toronto (English and Philosophy) and retired from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation where he worked for many years as a stagehand crew leader. He has written more than twenty books, four of these published by the Porcupine''s Quill (Man in Love [1985, Hiram and Jenny [1988, Mogul Recollected [1993, and Dove Legend [2001). He won the City of Toronto Book Award in 1999 for his collection Benedict Abroad (St Thomas Poetry Series). His work is the subject of a book-length study, `Her Kindled Shadow...'': An Introduction to the Work of Richard Outram, by Peter Sanger (Nova Scotia: The Antigonish Review, 2001/2002).

Richard Outram died in 2005.