all of us listening, hearing your voice, in your voice scorched prairie, the solace of touch, the rent regions of the heart, the place without place, all of us waiting, knowing you will say, Now read us a poem, your quick smile saying, Invent us, quickly, invent us, again. -Robert Kroetsch, from "To Eli Mandel" A prodigious body of innovative writing behind him, Robert Kroetsch turns to a starker lyrical mode in Too Bad: Sketches Toward a Self-Portrait. Oscillating between the many moods of a human heart that has lived through so much-from whimsy and scorn through desire, longing, lust, love, and serenity-these sketches mark a candid walk through the tortuous corridors of the poet's remembering, and exemplify the rehearsed dictum of an old teacher: "Every enduring poem was written today." Simply put, "This book is not an autobiography. It is a gesture toward a self-portrait, which I take to be quite a different kettle of fish." — Robert Kroetsch, from the Introduction