Headframe: 2

In Headframe: 2, Birk Sproxton amalgamates stories about history, geography, and family into the mythology of Flin Flon, a mining town on the edge of the Precambrian Shield.

The narrator goes underground. He revisits Beaver Lake and legendary prospectors Kate Rice, David Collins, and Tom Creighton. Cemeteries tell stories about the Frank Slide and about the poet's ancestors. Long poems commemorate his mother and father. Scars on the narrator's body constitute a physical biography.

With wit and wordplay, Headframe: 2 goes beyond the underlying notion of the first volume, borrowed from W.C. Williams, that a man is a city. Birk Sproxton excavates an abundant vein and turns nickel into gold.