The world in Carolyn Marie Souaid’s latest collection is both an act of the imagination and a responsibility. Souaid’s poems zoom in and out, shifting focus to accommodate varied dimensions of experience. We move from the breakdown of a relationship to primordial ooze to a suicide bomb to a son doing his math homework. In a disarmingly personable voice, Souaid investigates our darker moments, faces up to losses and failures both intimate and public, often with wry humour. If our world is an imperfect invention, it is also, for Souaid, a source of wonder -- where “the trick was not to fall asleep but to notice everything / in its brevity.”
“These bold, important poems have grappled with beauty and chosen honesty … [T]hey offer no easy consolations, but because they are made things … they reflect a hope for change.”