Robert Priest

Born in 1951, his family emigrated to Toronto, Canada, at the age of four. His father spent seven years in the British Navy, and his mother, a part-time standup comedian was a member of the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS), popularly known as the Wrens. Growing up in Scarborough, Priest developed a love of literature from the fanciful stories his mother often told before bedtime and later from the books available to him from the bookmobile – a mobile public library. By the age of eight, Priest says, he had already begun to dream of becoming a writer. In 1970 he entered the University of Waterloo to study mathematics, but, much more compelled to write poetry dropped out after one semester. Since his first book of poetry (The Visible Man, 1979), he has published eighteen more books of poetry, four plays, four children's/young adult novels and many articles in Toronto's Now Magazine. He is also a singer-songwriter of note, having released six rock albums for adults and three collections of children's music. He also wrote and performed numerous children's songs for CBC radio's Is Anybody Home and for the long-running television show Sesame Street. A song he cowrote with Nancy Simmonds and Alannah Myles was a number one hit in Canada and is still played all around the world. He lives in Toronto with Marsha Kirzner.[1]

The author of 23 books of poetry and prose, he won the Milton Acorn Memorial People's Poetry Award for The Mad Hand (1988).[2] Under his "Dr. Poetry" alias, he wrote and performed thirteen segments for CBC radio's spoken-word show Wordbeat. As a songwriter, he co-wrote (with Alannah Myles and Nancy Simmonds) the hit, "Song Instead of a Kiss" which rose to the top of the charts for two weeks in Canada and maintained that position for six weeks in Quebec receiving a SOCAN airplay award. It still receives considerable airplay all around the world. His aphorisms have already appeared in the Farmers' Almanac and Colombo's Canadian Quotations. He is the author of four plays, including The Coming, which was co-written with Leon Rooke. Priest's musical play Minibugs and Microchips received a Chalmers Award. His novel, Knights of the Endless Day (1993) received an Our Choice Award from the Canadian Children's Book Centre. Among his volumes of children's poetry, Daysongs Nightsongs and The Secret Invasion of Bananas and Other Poems (2002) are on a recommended reading list compiled by the CBC.His book of poems Reading the Bible Backwards (2008 ECW Press) reached number 2 on the Canadian poetry charts its sales exceeded only by Leonard Cohen. His 2013 book of poems for children and young adults Rosa Rose (Wolsak & Wynn) won a Silver Moonbeam Award and was a book of honour in the Lion and the Unicorn award for poetry in the North American category at Johns Hopkins University while its sequelThe Wolf is Back won the Gold Moonbeam Award for best book of children's poems in the Americas. His fantasy trilogy Spell Crossed was the winner of an Our Choice Award and has been described as a modern classic. A new collection of songs: 'Love is Hard' produced by Bob Wiseman was released this year and is available world-wide on the streaming services and through CDbaby. Robert also co-wrote the lead-off single 'Love Enough' for Julian Taylor's breakout album 'The Ridge. A new book of adult poetry If I Didn't Love the River will be published in the fall of 2022 by ECW Press.

Adult poetry

• The Visible Man (1980) Unfinished Monument
• Sadness of Spacemen (1980) Dreadnaught
• The Man Who Broke Out of the Letter X (1984) Coach House
• The Three Roberts on Childhood (1984; Robert Sward and Robert Zend) ISBN 0-920259-07-3
• The Mad Hand (1988) Coach House
• Scream Blue Living (1992) ISBN 0-920544-92-4
• Resurrection in the Cartoon (1997) ISBN 1-55022-313-5 ECW Press
• Time Release Poems (1997) Ekstasis
• Blue Pyramids:New and Selected Poems (2002) ISBN 1-55022-554-5 ECW Press
• How to Swallow a Pig (2004) ISBN 1-55022-649-5 ECW Press
• Reading the Bible Backwards (Poems: ECW press) (2008) ISBN 978-1-55022-835-9
• Previously Feared Darkness (Poems: ECW press) (2013) ISBN 978-1-77041-164-7

Children's Poetry and fiction

• The Short Hockey Career of Amazing Jany (1986) Aya Press
• The Ruby Hat (1987) ISBN 0-920544-47-9 Aya Press
• Knights of the Endless Day (1993)(Penguin Viking)
• A Terrible Case of the Stars (Penguin)(1994)
• The Secret Invasion of Bananas and Other Poems (2002)(Seraphim) ISBN 1-896860-97-4
• Rosa Rose, with illustrator Joan Krygsman. (Wolsak and Wynn, 2013). ISBN 978-1894987738
• The Wolf is Back, with illustrator Joan Krygsman. (Wolsak and Wynn, 2017). ISBN 978-1-928088-29-5
• The Paper Sword (Dundurn, 2014), a young-adult fantasy novel. ISBN 978-1459708266
• Second Kiss, (Dundurn, 2015) ISBN 978-1-4597-3020-5
• Missing Piece, (Dundurn, 2016) ISBN 978-1459730434

Recordings

• The Robert Priest E.P. (Airwave Records) 1982
• Congo Toronto/Rock Awhile (single) Robot Records 1986
• Broken Star/Still Can't Say Goodbye (single) Major Label Records 1987
• Rottweiler Pacifist (songs and poems) Coach House Press/the music Gallery 1990
• Tongue‘n’Groove (‘Spoken Word and song CD’) Artisan Music 1997
• Feeling the Pinch (CDbaby and streaming services) 2012
• BAAM! (CDbaby and streaming services)2017
• Love is Hard and streaming services (CDbaby)2022

Children's Music

• Summerlong The Boinks (G-tel) 1984
• Playsongs and Lullabies (children's music) (The Teds) Waterlily Music 1989
• Winterlong (songs & poems for children) (The Teds, Waterlily Music) 1992
• Daysongs Nightsongs ( children's songs and poems) Groundwood 1993

• robertpriest.org
• University of Toronto Library page on Robert Priest