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Description
Shortlisted 2009 Lampman-Scott Award
Vivid accessible poems revealing the mythic proportions of a seemingly simple, rural childhood and the passions that course through every life.
what do you do
with other people's memories
when they are carved into this land
the land offering up proof
— from "Prayer for Rain"
Brenda Leifso's first volume of poetry is a stunning debut: haunting, disturbing but resolutely beautiful. With an unflinching eye, Leifso explores the uncertainty of memory, the legacy of place, the powerful dynamics of sexuality and secrecy, and the violence inherent in family relations. Her central section, "The Theban Women," is a multi-voiced re-imagining of Euripides's The Bacchae; this drama in verse gives voice to women long silent, and together with Leifsois more personal poems, it forms a book of exceptional power from a poet whose voice is as honest as it is beautiful.
Contributor Notes
Brenda Leifso has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, and was the executive editor of PRISM International. Her poetry has appeared in many journals, and has received the Bliss Carman Banff Centre Award for Poetry, as well as awards in the Vancouver International Writers' Festival Writing Contest. She currently lives in Calgary.
Editorial Review
"In Daughters of Men, Brenda Leifso demonstrates a subtlety of heart, mind and soul that represents a new level of maturity for poetry in the West. Her book encompasses, among other things, a Greek tragedy of inherited crime within the family...which, for the one who does not share in it, provokes a slow-burning jealousy and sorrow at the exclusion. Is this a mind-set and verse that only a mad Alberta poet or Greek tragedian could invent? Or is it as simple as wanting to have one's rightful share — of the abuse and of the beauty, of a land and of a family. Brenda Leifso looks for the gold in the tar, and remarkably extracts it for her readers." - George McWhirter (Inaugural Poet Laureate of Vancouver)
"In blending the mythic with the rawly personal, Leifso shows considerable promise, Leifso uses wide-ranging formal strategies to develop challenging subject matter and broader social issues, with sensitivity and humour. Her writing is thoughtful and tight; her imagery is fresh; her rhythms, sound-patterns and pacing of line-breaks are consistently exciting. Leifso has a deft hand with language, poetic devices, and traditional form. She's especially good at evoking mood and memory with apt, precise images...And she is capable of taking us into and through difficult territory with both insight and compassion." - Jury Comments, Lampman-Scott Awards
