"A clever, complex debut, Maze will draw you into its labyrinthine, snakelike halls." -- Winnipeg Free Press "Withhis sentimental, figurative adaptations of foreign-language poetry,Hugh Thomas shows himself to be a pioneer in the field of what can onlybe described as "abstract translating.". Maze is sure to find a grateful audience in poetry enthusiasts who consider themselves "of the world," and language lovers alike." -- Atlantic Books Today "[ Maze ]is trippy and good-weird, and labyrinthine without being tortuous: thepremise is clearly just fun, and the poet sturdy at the helm. Thelanguage is deceptively straightforward, but the simultaneous presenceof the body, the implicit undermining of subjectivity, and the whimsicalbend of time bears rereading and rethinking." -- Montreal Review of Books "The poems in Maze ,as the title suggests, articulate a navigation through language andlanguages, deliberately allowing for misunderstanding, and opening upthe possibility for what might otherwise be impossible." -- Vallum "Maze is composed from a mix of works, languages and styles, and is moreinteresting for the variety, composing poems from works by AdamZagajewski, Harry Martinson, Tomas Tranströmer, Carlos Drummond deAndrade, Anne Tardos, Sappho, Frederico Garcia Lorca, Erín Moure andGeorg Trakl, and from languages including Swedish, French, German,Irish, Romanian, Japanese, Korean, Nynorsk and Italian.

Even moreentertaining, the sequence "He Said" are translations of eight poems"back into English of translations into Nynorsk by Dag Straumsvåg" ofpoems by Canadian poet Stuart Ross, taking the element of translationeven further." --rob mclennan "Exploring the grey area of translation, Albanian Suite is as much a study in intuition as it is a doorway to improvisation.Thomas' lines are direct and unaccommodating, as if under foreignconstraints, yet the linguistics at play resound beyond a surface levelof political boundaries." -- Ottawa Poetry Newsletter "Rarely have I been so thrilled to be disoriented by a book of poems. In his feature-length debut, Maze ,Hugh Thomas deftly and pleasurably readjusts my brain with his direct,unexpected, and beautifully weird lines. "When in a dream, speak thelanguage of the dream," he writes. When I finished this book, I woke upfluent and enraptured, happily in the wrong country." --Stuart Ross, author of Motel of the Opposable Thumbs and A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent.