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Frontenac House 2022 Quartet Launch Readings

November 22, 2022, 8:00 PM9:30 PM EST

Free

Join Frontenac House for their 2022 Quartet Launch Readings on Zoom.

Please register in advance for this launch. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

There will be a Q & A session after the readings, a kind of ‘covid-safe wine and cheese party’. Participants are encouraged to chat with the authors.

Openwork and Limestone

by Frances Boyle

Openwork and Limestone is a finely-wrought and potent new poetry collection from one of Canada’s most compelling poets. In Frances Boyle’s powerful vision, the rituals of contemporary women are seen through the lens of Celtic warrior queens, and goddesses. The natural and created worlds – as they run, as Boyle says, “through the funnel / of my palms” – are a constant source of awe and woman’s strength. A reverie that allows in the brutality of history and prehistory, as well as the joys. “The unconscious / swimming upward. What won’t stay buried rises / through rocks, rough-ridden and rusty.” Boyle’s Openwork and Limestone turns inward and outward at the same time, telling our multifarious collective human story so that it feels like our own intimate family history.

Emptying the Ocean

by Kim Fahner

Emptying the Ocean is a poetic journey based on the ancient Irish immram tales—the soul voyages taken by a woman who moves mystically through the four elements and the spirited Otherworld. Water, earth, air, and fire are woven through with imagination, inspiration, and spirit. The voice of the selkie bookends the collection, and the character of the sailor finds himself caught up in her wake. Rooted firmly in Irish myth and lore, with references to strong female figures who shapeshift and move between dimensions, there are Atlantic echoes of both Ireland and Newfoundland at work in these poems. 

A Grief Cave

by Ben Gallagher

A Grief Cave is a heartbreaking and life-affirming debut collection. In it, Ben Gallagher searches for the “secret face in the dark” of his partner who died suddenly nine years ago. The book—arcing out of darkness toward a new relationship and children, shades of light—remains excruciatingly open despite immense pain. “After a death … // the exact volume of a cathedral / a lit candle / curve in the road at night …” Gallagher’s A Grief Cave keeps a steady focus on the world as it evolves around him, pursuing the “trace of desire’s echo” through the passage of time. The result is immersive and cathartic.

Pilgrim to No Country

by Anvesh Jain

Pilgrim to No Country is a skillful, high-energy, visionary debut poetry collection. Anvesh Jain, reliving his childhood immigration from Delhi to Calgary over and over, reimagines home with humour and wisdom. From the primordial to the present, from alienation to acceptance, Jain enacts a mythic clashing of worlds: “Self-immolation at Banff – / Burn me, burn it all. Spread my ashes / From Peace Bridge … // Bring me back to New Delhi, / Where air cremates my tongue, / Where it is brown and dirty / And unblinded by white snow.” Balancing critique of empire, love for his new homeland, and longing for the old world, Jain’s Pilgrim to No Country makes you laugh out loud and then leaves you haunted.

 

Details

Date:
November 22, 2022
Time:
8:00 PM – 9:30 PM EST
Cost:
Free
Event Categories:
,
Website:
https://www.frontenachouse.com/quartet-2022-launch/

Venue

Online