My cousin Alison’s second book of poetry was released on March 18th. I love what she had to say about it here:
The Dream World was written over a five-year period during which my partner and I moved from the mainland to Newfoundland and back again. To change place is to stir up the concept of home, both real and imagined: homes inhabited, homes lost, homes we only ever longed for. Landscape is a door that opens onto desire, and many of these poems come from the struggle for belonging, in a particular location and in the physical world in general. This is my third book, and I was interested in exploring the frontiers of language, the place where words fall down in the face of the numinous, where both our feelings and what lies beyond human experience seem fundamentally unsayable. Finally, I was reading as widely as possible in the Humanities during the writing process, and I wanted to push the life of the mind up against poetry (which for me had previously been an intuitive and visceral enterprise). The Dream World is a collision of thought, feeling, and imagination, a world with borders wide enough–I hope–to encompass it all.
Eager to read more? Here’s where you can buy it.
You have a poet cousin? Geez, what a groovy family.
Me? I’m web surfing while the boy learns to pick up his (massive) head. Click. “Way to go, Milo!” Click. “Oops, back upsie!” Click. “Whoa! Rolling off to the left side again, I see!” Click.
Yup, I do, and she’s a novelist too, and if you need more places to surf, you could click the link to her website. I also have a pregnant sister visiting me now so after a day of maternity shopping, I’m kind of hip to the baby thing too these days. Go, Milo!
A novelist too? That’s just not fair. Spread the talent around a bit, already!
Speaking of talent, I recently heard from Michelle, a friend from high school. She has has lived more life than all of us combined and is now the dean of a law school in NYC. Where I’m cautious to a fault, she’s exuberantly active. Still, she made pretty much exactly the same baby decision as I did at pretty much exactly the same time. Her daughter is three months older than Mr. Milo. Eeerie, no?
By the way, if you need children’s book ideas (and I can’t imagine why you would), my cousin gave us an amazing collection: Kitten’s First Full Moon, by Kevin Henkes; My Friend Rabbit, by Eric Rohmann; and What Do You Do With a Tail Like That? by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page.