'Mario Relich's new collection Owl at Twilight offers a feast of poems. A clue to enjoying its many different dishes is the quote from Henry David Thoreau that precedes the first section 'Canal Scenes': 'It's not what you look at that matters. It's what you see.' Whether the subject of observation is bird-life, personal life, places, writers, art and artists, films, or history, the eye of the poem's narrator is directed by a wry, quizzical, compassionate, sensual and erudite intelligence.' , Vicki Feaver; 'There is something for everyone in Mario Relich's poetry - the sensitive response to art for the aesthete, the tribute to the forgotten heroes of War for the historian, the intimate reflection on writers past and present for the book lover, the anecdotes that humanise silver screen celebrities for the film buffs, the acute observation of birds in the garden and in the wild for nature lovers. Mario has the ability to transform the commonplace to make it mystical. He presents an artist's palette with carefully chosen themes and colours, linking seemingly disparate images in a contiguity that is both seamless and captivating.', Bashabi Fraser; 'The poetry of Mario Relich is both accessible and erudite - not a common combination. His cosmopolitan background (birth in Zagreb, youth in Montreal) blends unselfconsciously with his celebration - often quirky - of his adopted city of Edinburgh: the local, as William Carlos Williams observed, is the universal. His deep love of the literatures and arts of many countries, including Scotland, is richly evident in this collection. Moreover, he responds sensitively and perceptively (as in his first collection, Frisky Ducks) to the natural world. He is eager to share such pleasures with his readers. Just run your eye down the titles of these poems and you won't be able to restrain your curiosity!', Tom Hubbard; 'What strikes me immediately about the poems in Owl at Twilight is their invigorating range of subject matter, a testament to Relich's uniquely questing and questioning poetic mind. Not only do we have nods towards his cineaste interests ('A Hollywood Tale') but also a number of ekphrastic poems and an almost auspex-like fascination for birdlife. Relich is a keen observer and percipient pedestrian and we are invited along with him as he travels his beloved and adopted Edinburgh of the mind where we encounter legendary figures like the poet Robert Garioch and the folklorist Hamish Henderson. Some poems here are polemical - yes, but never stridently so, as Relich, like Garioch, sides with 'the sceptical citizens'. The title-poem 'Owl at Twilight' riffs off Hegel's metaphysical conceit of wisdom (in the form of an owl) being only active in darkness or hindsight but argues that the owl, dragooned into this metaphor against its will, is only interested in the present. Relich is very much a poet of the present, but one profoundly well-read and understanding of all that has come before him.', Richie McCaffery; ‘A splendid little volume… The cosmopolitan background of the poet, born in Zagreb, raised in Montreal, and now rooted in Edinburgh, combines with his wide knowledge and intelligence to produce not just accessible but thought-provoking poetry of topics ranging from birds to art, film, history and literature. There is even a poem devoted to the portraits of the great Duke of Wellington.’ Lesley Duncan, The Herald, November 2021.
