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Rienzi Crusz was a poet and retired librarian living in Waterloo, ON. Born in Galle, Sri Lanka, Crusz was educated at the University of Ceylon (B.A. Hons.) and was employed as Chief Research Librarian for the Central Bank of Ceylon. After emigrating to Canada in 1965, he attended the University of Toronto (B.L.S.) and the University of Waterloo (M.A.). He worked at the University of Toronto Library and in 1969 was appointed as a reference and collections development librarian at the University of Waterloo, a position he held until his retirement in 1993.
His creative work first began to appear in periodicals and newspapers in 1968, and in 1974, his first collection of poems was published under the title Flesh and thorn. Since then, numerous other collections have been published. Crusz is an active voice among Canadian immigrant poets, and his work depicts the contrasts between South Asian and Canadian life. In 1994, he won the literature award in the Kitchener-Waterloo Arts Awards.
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File consists of 4 handwritten and 56 typed poems written by Rienzi Crusz. Titles include: Where Adam first touched God, The disenchanted child, Running the block, Baby-photo Inc. vs. Michael Egerton Crusz, Elegy for the unfinished poem, The unkindest cut of all, God is in the apple turnover, Song of myself, Hurrah for day 21, The other side of the story, For Cleta Nora Marcellina Serpanchy, The poem is in the leaping, Dialogues with the contrary man, I am balancing on ice with more poems in my hand, How does one reach the Sweet Kernel, Elegy for the Sun-Man's father, Flight of the white butterfly, Elegy for an orange, Conversations with God about my present whereabouts, The mall walkers, Reincarnation, Elegy, Bumpis the magic elephant [short story], The unexpected hour, Death of a poet, Seasons of memory, Song for the burning bush, Poetics, Distant rain, Again a dream of another summer, Poems: Animal and nature, No fixed address, Trinidad style, Song of the immigrant, For Michael dancing with his hands on his head, Interpreting the clothes line, The Sun-Man takes to wokking, Tramp, No greater love, Man with a mermaid dream, Willie and the disenchanted child, When a poem is not a poem, Angels.