WHAT READERS SAY ABOUT STEVE'S BOOKS ...

“Steve Noyes has written a wonderful book... [Bian Fu's] portrait is a marvelous act of creativity, and her character, in its complexity and strength, is unforgettable."  
                                                                                                                    Edward O'Connor, The Fiddlehead
“The book moves quickly beyond stereotypes to describe a complex  intercultural relationship, illustrating the difficulty of connecting across cultures and continents, while painting a vibrant  picture of a foreigner's life in China...." Emily Walz, Cha Magazine

“What makes this novel special is that it goes past the Romeo and Juliet theme to all the daunting complications bicultural couples face. Jeff and Bian Fu's situation is so daunting that many readers won't know which outcome they're cheering for. ” Maureen Scurfield,  Winnipeg Free Press
“ ... if he takes a little while to get there, the payoff at the end is greater for the time it took. ... revisiting the same interactions and slathering them in tense, conflicted emotions ultimately works out to Noyes' benefit ..." Dave Proctor, Broken Pencil

“ ... the reader moves beyond the tourist highlights into the schools, streets, parks and into the home of a particular family, experiencing the joys, frustrations and disappointments that come with exploring a country beyond its surface." Judy Fong Bates, The Literary Review of Canada
_“...these highly accomplished poems, varied in form and richly textured,  include pieces on sheep and slugs,  basketball, Chaucer (in Chaucer-ese), addictions ... Sometimes inscrutable, but  always interesting..."  Hannah Main-VanDerKamp, BC Bookworld
“This meditation on tenderness, on the awe of the person sleeping beside you, rivals Neruda." John Herbert Cunningham,  Prairie Fire Review of Books
"In what is a real accomplishment, Noyes has let these two languages have intercourse."           Shane Neilson, The Fiddlehead
“... clear-eyed and cleanly written, taking in and giving back an entire world with moving honesty." Pauline Holdstock,  CBC interview

“As he had shown previously in Cities of India (1994) and Hurriya (1996),  few poets are better than he is at paramount themes in the Canadian identity -- multiculturalism and heterogeneity."  Jason Ranon Uri Rotstein, The Malahat Review

“ ... he never forgets that he is an outsider, implicitly white and Western, nor does he romanticize or exoticize the actually existing China of get-rich-or-else capitalism, political dictatorship and industrial pollution."  George Elliot Clarke,  Halifax Chronicle-Herald
“... evocative without being sentimental... " Alison Calder, Winnipeg Free Press

“The tone is one of frank, retrospective disclosure; the language is emotionally and visually vivid." Jane Henderson, The Dominion

“... a bona fide love poet... In what is a real accomplishment, Noyes has let these two languages have intercourse." 
                     Shane Neilson, The Fiddlehead

“... different forms of diction bring a varied texture to Noyes' poems; they're like a combination of silk and sandpaper, which makes them all the more interesting to brush up against.  Barbara Carey, Toronto Star
“The persona in Noyes' poems is young,  aware and sometimes funny, and the poet has a fine sense of the absurd that passes for everyday life ... At the core of the poems is a restlessness and an unwillingness to accept any spoonfed answers, which bodes well.  It will be interesting to see in future work where his vision takes him."  Rita Donovan,  The Fiddlehead
“Image and idea meet easily here, and memorably... Noyes'  work tends to roil outward from a gut intuition, confusing and invigorating at once." Allan Brown, Quarry
“... (a) gift for precision and concision...the poems here display an enviable range... Anne Archer,  The Queen's Quarterly
“...flamboyantly self-centred ... These poems recall that the telling is in and about words, not life." Susan Rudy Dorscht,  Canadian Literature