About the book
- New Brunswick's Alfred G. Bailey Prize for best poetry manuscript
- Shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award
- Winner of the J.M. Abraham Poetry Award
About the author
Jennifer Houle grew up in Shediac, New Brunswick. Her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals over the past ten years. Her work has won several awards, including The Writer’s Federation of New Brunswick’s Alfred G. Bailey Prize for best poetry manuscript, awarded for The Back Channels. A lifelong East Coaster, she now lives in Hanwell, just outside of Fredericton, with her husband and two sons
Excerpt
from Talk of Mermaids
This is the shift of the heart’s tumbled pin,the bloodshot eye and the haul: smokers trickle
from the old boucannerie, converted now,
one body, one bad lung, a rotting arctic char
between them: web of sick, soft tissues. Nets
of spittle, wry grins, unenviable shrewdness.
Banned crab heaved into slatted wirebounds
leaks into cynical chat. Dreaded things
are sure now, handed down, and trawling
for a private place to die, they ring our darkest
impulses and vex small acts of kindness
with a nervous calculation, shy self-interest.
Now is not the time for talk of mermaids,
questionable motives, far-fetched sentience,
or the pain of others. Skepticism rears
its double, whiskered chin, disarticulating
wonder with a grunt. Heavy snowfall
is predicted, work is to be done. Everywhere
we look, stock images: a hull shears cold,
black water in dead silence. Nothing floats,
nor swims, to the surface. Only when you turn
your back, a fin on the horizon. Excitations
kin to the aurora borealis fumble and fail
beautifully, trying something different.
Reviews
“Charles G.D Robert's poem "The Tantramar Revisited" poses a question about memory: which out to be more precious to us: our nostalgic "illusion" of a beloved place or its reality, subjetct to "the hands of chance and change"? It still…” >>
— Abby Paige Arc Poetry Magazine
PURCHASE FORMAT
PAPERBACK
EBOOK
$9.99
108 pages
Epub ISBN: 9781773241029
Accessible Ebook. This Publication meets the requirements of the EPUB Accessibility specification with conformance to WCAG 2.0 Level AA. This book contains various accessibility features such as alternative text for images, table of contents, page list, landmark, reading order, and structural navigation.