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guys named Bill traces a journey from childhood to adulthood, through a marriage and beyond. The various characters named Bill are a thread running throughout the book, appearing as turning points in the narrator’s life. Ranging from darkly cynical to intimate, to humorous and blunt, the poems are ultimately optimistic, as the resilient narrator creates a new life from the remnants of the old.
“Leslie Greentree’s poetry is audacious, written with such passion and crackling insight that I fell for the persona immediately, coveted her as a character in a novel about disintegrating marriage. Sometimes achingly sad, sometimes impudently humourous or irreverent, always recognizably honest, these are evocative poems that will return when you least expect them.”
– Pearl Luke
“Red Deer poet Leslie Greentree has the laconic diction down pat… She has an appealing, sometimes self-mocking voice… Apparently modest and self-contained, [these poems] bite — like reality.”
– Harry Vandervlist, FFWD
“These are poems with teeth, from a new poet to watch.”
– Dave Margoshes
“As the title, guys named Bill, implies, Leslie Greentree employs a vernacular line and anecdotal realist aesthetic with a droll delivery, devastating understatement, quiet wit and irony… The craft is there; the voice is sure. A nice debut collection.”
– Richard Stevenson, The Danforth Review