Taking its inspiration from the Melville’s famous line “If man will strike, strike through the mask!”, Based on Actual Events punches through the surface of visible things, grabbing wild at the drifting actual. Calling himself a “a realist in fabulist clothing,” Robert Moore gives us a book-length sequence of sleek, fiercely comic, colloquial poems whose aphoristic storytelling is pegged to a desire for sublimity. His project is to find new frames of reference for our estrangement from the world. With each burst of invention and stylistic high-spiritedness (“So we reverse engineered the awesome and all we got / was this lousy poesy”), Based on Actual Events adds up to be Moore’s best book yet.

“A poet of vast reference, combining interests in Greek myth, popular culture, natural observation, autobiography and, of course, literature.” —George Elliot Clarke, author, Execution Poems

“A knockout, full of insights, clever language, and humour—of both the mordant and laugh-out-loud variety . . . In the scope of his interests, he reminds me of a Don McKay or A. F. Moritz.” —Antigonish Review