{"title":"Poetic Presents","description":"\u003cp\u003eGot an artist on your list this year? Poetry makes the perfect present. \u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"river-woman","title":"river woman","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGovernor General’s Award–winning Métis poet and acclaimed novelist Katherena Vermette’s second collection, \u003ci\u003eriver woman\u003c\/i\u003e, explores her relationship to nature — its destructive power and beauty, its timelessness, and its place in human history.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAward-winning Métis poet and novelist Katherena Vermette’s second book of poetry, \u003ci\u003eriver woman\u003c\/i\u003e, examines and celebrates love as decolonial action. Here love is defined as a force of reclamation and repair in times of trauma, and trauma is understood to exist within all times. The poems are grounded in what feels like an eternal present, documenting moments of clarity that lift the speaker (and reader) out of the illusion of linear experience. This is what we mean when we describe a work of art as being timeless.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLike the river they speak to, these poems return again and again to the same source in search of new ways to reconstruct what has been lost. Vermette suggests that it’s through language and the body ― particularly through language as it lives inside the body ― that a fragmented self might resurface as once again whole. This idea of breaking apart and coming back together is woven throughout the collection as the speaker contemplates the ongoing negotiation between the city, the land, and the water, and as she finds herself falling into trust with the ones she loves.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eVermette honours the river as a woman ― her destructive power and beauty, her endurance, and her stories. 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Marked by rhythmic drive, humour and surprise, Undi’s poems consider what is left out from the history and ongoing realities of Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the west. Taking its title from a beauty school in downtown Winnipeg that closed in 2017 after nearly 100 years of operation, \u003cem\u003eScientific Marvel\u003c\/em\u003e approaches the prairies from the point of view of a person who is often erased from the prairies’ idea of itself. “I mean my country the way \/ my country means my country \/ and what else is there to say? \/ I am bad and brown \/ and trying. Nothing here \/ belongs to me or could \/ or ever will.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is poetry that touches on challenging topics—from queerness and colonialism to racism, climate rage, and decolonization, while never straying far from specific lived experience, the so-called ‘smaller’ questions: about self, art, dance parties and pop culture, relationships and love.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"House of Anansi Press Inc","offers":[{"title":"trade paperback","offer_id":41382944407611,"sku":"9781487012250","price":21.99,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true},{"title":"epub","offer_id":41386271277115,"sku":"9781487012281","price":16.99,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0264\/3374\/9051\/files\/BNCImageAPI_52ccbaf1-0cc5-4631-8c4f-63f08ebe9752.jpg?v=1748895611"},{"product_id":"the-seated-woman","title":"The Seated Woman","description":"\u003cp\u003eTHE POEMS\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eYou fell asleep on the tiles,\u003cbr\u003e\n a translucent peacock loomed,\u003cbr\u003e\n your sex opened and let out\u003cbr\u003e\n a very blue, very high flame.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eYou wore a split veil, that morning.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSilent, nailed to her chair, the seated woman writes. She cracks. The poems fidget, slip their fingers: they seek to enter. Perched on her shoulder, the poems whisper in her ear. 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Mourning the loss of Earth’s biodiversity, from insects to mammoths to trees, these introspective poems invite us to consider the risks and rewards of loving what may vanish in our lifetime. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShadow Price charges readers to contemplate their power and purpose in the world today, recognizing that there is hope even in the belly of the beast.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"House of Anansi Press Inc","offers":[{"title":"trade paperback","offer_id":41820378726459,"sku":"9781487012922","price":22.99,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true},{"title":"epub","offer_id":41820378791995,"sku":"9781487012939","price":18.99,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0264\/3374\/9051\/files\/9781487012922.jpg?v=1780064440"},{"product_id":"myth","title":"Myth","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMyth\u003c\/em\u003e, the much-anticipated debut collection from the multi-talented Terese Mason Pierre, weaves between worlds (‘real’ and ‘imaginary’) unearthing the unsettling: our jaded and joyful relationships to land, ancestry, trauma, self, and future. In three movements and two interludes, the poems in \u003cem\u003eMyth\u003c\/em\u003e move symphonically from tropical islands to barren cities, from lucid dreams to the mysteries of reality, from the sea to the cosmos. A dynamic mix of speculative poetry and ecstatic lyricism, the otherworldly and the sublime, Pierre’s poems never stray too long or too far from the spell of unspoiled nature: “The palm trees nod \/ at the ocean \/ the ocean does \/ what it always does \/ trusts the moon completely.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFriends ‘with benefits’ tour the wonders of Grenada’s landscapes; extraterrestrials visit the Caribbean and the locals don’t seem phased; red birds “saunter airily like tourists,” La Diablesse lures helpless suitors to their dooms. This collection asks: How can myths manifest themselves in our daily lives? What do we actually mean when we say we love ourselves and others? 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