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Description
Class Acts, Katerina Fretwell's seventh poetry (and art) collection, confronts the covert, historical caste/class system in the West. Section One details proto-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft's injection of female rights into the French Revolution's post-industrial, democratic discourse. Section Two contrasts the 2008 financial meltdown with Fretwell's 50s and 60s coerced debutante upbringing. Section Three, through Fretwell's social work in 60s/70s Halifax, illustrates implacable poverty. Poetic forms mirror themes: repetitive pantoums underscore female restraints in Wollstonecraft's time; prose poems vocalize middle class fear; sestinas reflect alcoholic, cloistered socialites; blank, staggered verse mimics desperate penury.
Contributor Notes
Award-winning poet and professional artist, Katerina Vaughan Fretwell's poetry and art reside across Canada and in Denmark, Japan, and across the United States. Recent poetry collections include Samsara: Canadian in Asia and Shaking Hands with the Night. Her sixth volume of poetry, Angelic Scintillations, was published by Inanna Publications in 2011. Her poetry has appeared in over 50 North American journals, and in over 40 anthologies. She chaired the Lowther Jury in 2006, performed at the League of Canadian Poets Cabaret in Winnipeg in the 1980s, was interviewed by Susan Helwig on In Other Words in the late '90s, and read her poems on Poetry In Motion on television. Her poetic sequence "Quartzite Dialogues" was set to music by Michael Horwood and performed at the Festival of the Sound in 1999 and 2004 and at the Takefu Music Center in Japan in 1999. She is a member of the feminist caucus of the League of Canadian Poets. She lives just south of Parry Sound, Ontario.
Editorial Review
"Despite my bias toward the lyric, I found Fretwell addictive. There is a reliable continuity--reliable because her voice is genuine. The audible impact of the poems stays with me--I hear again the broken lines, the headlong plunges to stops that jolt like a series of admonitions. I am immensely impressed.This is surely one of the most authentic voices in contemporary Canadian poetry. There is no embellishment, no false humility, no search for a nicer way to say something--or a less nice way. Fretwell is not provocative for the sake of provocation, or funny for the sake of a cheap laugh. I am absolutely convinced." - Arc Poetry Magazine"Class Acts is a powerful critique of inequality past and present, turning through Katerina Vaughan Fretwell's dialogues with Mary Wollstonecraft, her own life experience and the poverty she encountered as a social worker in Halifax. Fretwell explores the many facets of her ambitious project passionately, in a series of highly accomplished poems." - Elizabeth Greene, poet and author of Moving"Katerina Vaughan Fretwell's dazzling poetic trilogy Class Acts unites the personal and political through its highly charged, metaphor-making power. In "Our Mirroring Centuries," nineteenth-century feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and the author ("Kate") become contemporaries in their longing for the restoration of the feminine body, mind, and spirit. "Class Actions" is a jazzy, blazing satire on the effects of corporate capitalism and its accompanying war machinery. The final section, "The Other Half," explores personal trauma and transformation, as well as the author's riveting experiences as a social worker This well-crafted volume, complemented by Fretwell's stunning watercolours, contains lyrics, prose poems, narrative poems, pantoums, shaped poems, dramatic monologues and more. Absorb these poems and be lifted through language to the place where anger tips over into wisdom, outrage at injustice into justice-making." - Susan McCaslin, poet and author of Demeter Goes Skydiving"[Katerina Fretwell's] poetry is rich fare, highly spiced and saucy. ...I'm much impressed with the versatility in both form and subject, and with the vigour and the wit and daring that always characterize [her] writing and are there in great abundance in Class Acts."- Allan Briesmaster, co-publisher of Quattro Books, poet and author of Against the Flight of Spring"[Class Acts] is charged and emotionally potent ... there is a natural intimacy created with Mary Wollstonecraft ... she becomes an important figure for our age! I will continue to savour the richness of the poems." - Clara Blackwood, poet and author of Arcana and Under the Dragon's Tail
