Review of A Peeled Wand: Selected Poems of Anne Szumigalski

A Peeled Wand: Selected Poems of Anne Szumigalski

In the decade since the Saskatoon-based poet Anne Szumigalski died, all but one of her 16 collections have gone out of print. So it is a great and good thing that A Peeled Wand: Selected Poems of Anne Szumigalski (96 pages, $15) has been published by Winnipeg's Signature Editions. For all that Szumigalski was a pioneer as a Prairie poet and beloved in her adopted Saskatchewan and beyond, this book never feels like a dusty tribute. The poems yowl and laugh and grieve and feel as fresh today as when Szumigalski first started publishing them in 1974, as is evidenced by this snippet from In Praise of My Own Breasts: "A lover told me one breast is a giant puffball the other a coconut. One is full of sweet milk the other of ripe spores. He didn't say which he admired the most."


Winnipeg Free Press

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A Peeled Wand: Selected Poems of Anne Szumigalski

In the decade since the Saskatoon-based poet Anne Szumigalski died, all but one of her 16 collections have gone out of print.  
So it is a great and good thing that A Peeled Wand: Selected Poems of Anne Szumigalski has been published by Winnipeg's Signature Editions.  For all that Szumigalski was a pioneer as a Prairie poet and beloved in her adopted Saskatchewan and beyond, this book never feels like a dusty tribute.  The poems yowl and laugh and grieve and feel as fresh today as when Szumigalski first started publishing them in 1974, as is evidenced by this snipped from In Praise of My Own Breasts: "A lover told me one breast is a giant puffball the other a coconut.  One is full of sweet milk the other of ripe spores. He didn't say which he admired the most." 


— Ariel Gordon Winnipeg Free Press

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