Poetry. Robert Brand has given up on real women. He has, however, found a (somewhat problematic) solution, a new feminine ideal: the 110-pound sex doll he ordered over the internet. Showing an uncanny access to the voice of the rejected, unimpressive, emotionally challenged modern male, Helen Guri's debut collection explores Robert's transition from lost and lonely to loved, if only by the increasingly acrobatic voices in his mind. MATCH's touching, whip-smart poems chart the limits of the mind/body relationship in decidedly virtual times. Does our hero's lovesick, wry, self-searching and often self-annihilating gaze signal some catastrophic aversion to depth or a feverish (if unsettling) reassertion of the romantic impulse? Can anything good really happen when the object of one's affection is, literally, an object? And if she looks like a human being, can you ever know for sure she isn't one?

Author City: TORONTO, ON CAN

Helen Guri graduated from the University of Toronto's Creative Writing program, and has taught writing at Humber College. Her work has appeared in many Canadian journals, including Arc, Descant, Event, Fiddlehead, and Grain. MATCH is her first collection. She lives in Toronto.