The Address Book
“Sombre and beautiful… If you love great poetry's centripetal intensities, you'll have no problem with [this book]… In the book's last section, Rimbaud's 'The Drunken Boat' and fourteen other heavyweight classics are stunningly translated.”—Globe & Mail
The Address Book, poetry, House of Anansi Press, 2004
• Second printing, July 2007
• Third printing, September 2016
“[An] exquisite collection… The Address Book is a portrait of an artist as an older, more experienced man, whose stories teem with enough stirring ferocity to stamp a lasting impression.”—Quill & Quire
“A rich and challenging collection… the craft is anchored securely to genuine emotion.” —Montreal Gazette
“Arrestingly beautiful and never banal… authoritative and intoxicating… stylistically and formally various… [Heighton] is a singer in an age-old tradition pursuing his serious craft.” —Journal of Canadian Poetry
“The Address Book votes for vitality… [and] the sonorous smack of words… There's so much conviction here… Heighton's better poems exhibit energy, spunk, and verbal daring.” —Books in Canada
“Heighton's ear and musicality never fail him… [His] craft is extremely well polished but it is to his credit that… craft is at the service of narrative and feeling states.” —Arc
“His poetry is resonant and adjectival, technically accomplished… [and] his stance is authentic… I defy anyone to read his 2001, an Elegy and not melt over its closing lines.” —Vancouver Sun
“I couldn't pick a favourite poem from this book, because there are at least fifteen of them. They talk about love without ever being maudlin, and they're sad without being bleak, and they're horny without being sleazy, and they admit to all their clichés and shrug them off.” —Broken Pencil
“Poem after poem in this collection places vivid imagery and emotional honesty together and wraps them in lovely, lovely words.” —The Book Shelf Review
“In The Address Book, Heighton… puts his wide ranging vocabulary, his fine sense of drama, and his keen feeling for image and metaphor to ancient and honoured uses.” —Canadian Literature
“Elegant and wry… With much to grasp and feel after.” —Vue Weekly
“A strong collection… The antidotal energy of his poems comes partly from linguistic exuberance… [and] partly from his poems' wide embrace, his desire to get everything in there.” —Canadian Notes & Queries