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Thing Is: Poems

Thing Is: Poems

Current price: $16.95
Publication Date: March 28th, 2017
Publisher:
McClelland & Stewart
ISBN:
9780771005558
Pages:
96

Description

A startling and hip collection of poetry from a dual American/Canadian citizen who's already making waves on the literary scene.

Suzannah Showler's bracing, intense second collection is equal parts cultural critique and phenomenological investigation. Building on the enlightened skepticism of her much-praised debut, Thing Is puts the hashtag age through some much-needed paces. Witty, cutting, heartbroken, and cautiously hopeful, these poems are really about "aboutness," about what it means to be alive right now. They also nimbly advance the longstanding poetic argument for the value of considered attention: "What follows from / what you know is / not the same thing / as knowledge. Even / when you get it right."

About the Author

SUZANNAH SHOWLER is the author of Most Dramatic Ever, a book of cultural criticism about The Bachelor (ECW, 2018), and the poetry collections Thing Is (McClelland & Stewart, 2017) and Failure to Thrive (ECW, 2014). You can read her work in the New York Times Magazine, Slate, The Walrus, Hazlitt, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among other places. She is the poetry editor for Maisonneuve. She also does contingent labour teaching creative writing. She currently lives on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded land of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations with her partner, Andrew Battershill.

Praise for Thing Is: Poems

SHORTLISTED FOR THE VINE AWARD FOR POETRY

“In Thing Is, poet Suzannah Showler writes beautiful, witty, heartbreaking poems that seek answers to impossible questions. These are metaphysical poems, each its own investigation and exploration.” —Mary MacDonald, Pique


Praise for Suzannah Showler:


“Showler’s work is evidence of a lively and flourishing imagination.” —Toronto Star

“[Showler’s] navigation between the funny and the broken is both startling and captivating, and makes us wonder whether the two are more similar than we might think.” —Contemporary Verse 2

“Her poems are distinguished by their cultural awareness . . . without losing sight of the human ethos that defines modern living.” —Publishers Weekly

“Spiked with snarky wit and punctuated by slivers of tenuous hope. The writing is tight, poignant and accessible.” —Maisonneuve

“A bold, self-assured voice, but Showler proves she has more than earned it. This is the real thing.” —Lemon Hound