“Midlife Action Figure delivers surprise, delight, and sense; Banks slams sly one liners as though he were competing in a professional wrestling match … The result is breathlessly entertaining and gut-punchingly wise … Midlife Action Figure is an insightful tour through the human experience, crafted in clear and specific imagery that captivates the imagination and the intelligence. It is a book that begs to be read and reread.” — Quill & Quire Starred Review

“[A] spirited, wide-ranging collection.” — Toronto Star

“A dense, electric collection filled with whip-smart lines and crackling imagery.” — Winnipeg Free Press

“‘The laboratory of aesthetics / these days is really about mischief / and surprise’ writes Chris Banks in this collection of cheeky, pointed dicta on everything from how to survive an emergency to enduring a job interview, amid surreal admissions that the speaker has a ‘minor crush on Saturn’s moons’ or possibly suffers a ‘slow leak’ as each year his ‘heart grows an extra ring.’ Midlife Action Figure is a book of solid poems from the centre of existing, through deep space and the places in the mind like ‘Matryoshka dolls’ that endlessly nest into their own allusiveness, returning with a yield of essential observations and imperatives for the continuance of the earth.” — Catherine Owen, award-winning author of Designated Mourner

“‘My spirit guide is a scarecrow’; ‘guilt is everyone’s personal gulag’; ‘can I coat-check this malaise?’; ‘death is classically trained’: Chris Banks builds poems out of short sentences that are like photons, little packets of energy full of aphoristic punch and surprise. He delights in the swings of imagination, in the way every next image or idea can plow new ground even as it alters the meaning and feel of what has preceded it. The result is a constant state of euphoria, an ongoing demonstration of the swerve and swirl of human consciousness. ‘A river is a correspondence course’ — as with so many lines here, my recognition that I’ve never thought of it that way is followed immediately by the sensation that there’s no other way to see it, that I am being shown the truth.” — Bob Hicok, award-winning poet and author of Elegy Owed

“The poems are densely thick and incredibly rich, akin, somewhat, to a lyric molasses in which a reader is caught up in an unexpected lyric flow … A poetry in which one can't easily pull away from … Banks' poems are a kind of lyric collage.” — rob mclennan’s blog

“There were a lot of single lines that stood out to me, I found many gems among these short poems … Midlife Action Figure is a powerful collection that will evoke many thoughts.” — Literary Lizard blog

“Midlife Action Figure raises the bar for everyone in 2020. Banks makes you laugh, demands you cry, and kicks you where the sun shines the least when need be … If you want to please anyone in your poetry universe you cannot go wrong with Chris Banks’ Midlife Action Figure … There is no end to the delights Banks brings to the table. This is what poetry can be, at its best. Absolute and splendid.” — Today’s Book of Poetry blog