Toronto based poet and novelist Sharon Marcus has written nine books of poetry, four novels, a collection of short stories, three works of nonfiction and a scattering of miscellaneous pieces, book reviews and the like. For the most part, the poetry is lyrical, ecstatic, searching for revelation, always with a passionate obligation to guard the gates of language, to protect rhythm and preserve substance; each of the four novels investigates a different form, all very lyrical, all incorporating extensive use of verse one way or another, the fourth novel in alternating sections of verse and prose; the nonfiction works, whether political or personal, describe events too odd for fiction.