“Alternator is a three-fold mirror that reflects mind, world, and poetic form; its lexemes and self-portraits jostle and lamp the demotic sublime to alter egos and the still-life of core samples. From the sublime to the demotic drop in the bucket list, Banks says dynamite, and detonates.”
- Michael Greenstein, The Seaboard Review
“Alternator by Chris Banks rivets me with metaphors and imagery-dense poetry. I’m made of rivets right now. Just look at my arm. Go on, test it with a magnet……Profound, sharp, quippy, it’s amusing. It silenced for a while my own urge to write, ever, because it is so well rendered……Alternator is a slow read, primarily because I get sated. I need to set it aside and give it a think and a digestion. He talks of important topics but not with self-importance, not with The Answers, but acknowledging that stuff is complicated and tiring and energizing. Banks allows the stretch of an emotional gamut in his poems which is a beautiful thing to see in poems that are, at the same time, so tailored. There is no sloppy bagginess anywhere. There’s intentionality driving the poems into an intensity that compels reading.”
- Pearl Pirie, The Miramichi Reader
“A car’s alternator turns mechanical energy into electrical charge. Spark plugs use the charge to ignite combustion. Just so does Banks convert experience: in comes the matter of daily life; out, onto the page, go energetic bursts of memory, observation, cultural detail, and idiomatic turns, sparking poetry. “
- Maguerite Pigeon, BC Review
“[Deepfake Serenade] layers images in an energetic and riotous way. You’ll find yourself, as a reader, tumbling through an endless stream of quirky, but wise observations and reflections on contemporary society.”
- Kim Fahner, Periodicities
“The first thing that strikes me is that Banks is an effortless craftsperson. That is not to say that I don’t think he puts a great deal of work into his poems. I mean that he has composed this book in such a way that it appears effortless. One poem breezes through to the next. Profound observations, clever phrases, sharp memories, melancholy confessions roll through Deepfake Serenade with startling ease.”
- Tom Halford, The Miramichi Reader
“While the world continues to complicate itself, Midlife Action Figure lingers in a netherworld of seasons, neither hopeful nor damning, but always alert and coherent, wanting to say just the right thing, to anyone still willing to listen.”
- Nathaniel G. Moore, Arc Poetry Magazine
“Midlife Action Figure delivers surprise, delight, and sense; Banks slams sly one liners as though he were competing in a professional wrestling match”
- Micheline Maylor, Quill And Quire
“The Cold Panes of Surfaces reveals another visionary, Romantic sensibility, one that stays more consistently rooted in the particularities of memory and everyday experience but nevertheless finds the stuff of transcendence in that material. Throughout, Banks’s craft is wonderfully assured. His leisurely, expansive lines are tightly packed with thought and feeling; his rhythms are finely attuned to the movement of a meditating mind; and his quiet, unostentatious language can give a sense of precision and mystery at one and the same time.”
- Malcolm Woodland, University of Toronto Quarterly
“Chris Banks slips, with great ease, between past and present, between what is lost and what is found in this collection. His poems are elegantly layered pieces of image and metaphor that sweep the reader into the centre of each poem.”
- Kim Fahner, Canadian Book Review Annual
“…his pensive poems take hold of the reader in a quiet but emphatic way…this collection is chock full of deft phrasing and memorable images.”
- Barbara Carey, The Toronto Star
“Banks is a keeper. I look forward to his progress.”
- Andrew Vaisius, Prairie Fire
“Noteworthy Canadian poets remain under-recognized in the United States. This collection from young Ontario writer Chris Banks warrants attention… These quiet contemplative poems listen to the world breathe.”
- Melanie Drane, ForeWord Magazine
“The Cold Panes of Surfaces confirms the emergence of a poet who has meaningful things to say and who possesses the language tools to say it well.”
- Robert Reid, The Record
“Chris Banks takes the incidental moments of our lives and raises them with stunningly precise language, to the level of the divine…the imagery is always fresh and revelatory, as if Banks were taking us by the hand, pointing to the world around us and saying, “Here is beauty. Here it is again. And here.”
- Leah Rae, Geist
“Cold Panes of Surfaces offers appreciative readers 96-pages of Chris Banks’s superbly crafted and enthusiastically recommended prose poems.”
- Library Bookwatch
“Banks writes complex, nuanced lines of narrative verse….He’s a maestro with the poetry of physical objects”
- Nick Than, Quill & Quire
“His meditations on the contemporary world are set against bittersweet poems in which he looks back on his younger years . . . There’s a fluid, conversational ease to Banks’s heartfelt meditations, as well a sense of urgency.”
- Barbara, Carey Toronto Star
“Amid an age in crisis, The Cloud Versus Grand Unification Theory questions poetry’s purpose and overflows with generational ephemera in search of a new type of authenticity.”
- Domenica Martinello, Globe and Mail
Chris Banks 