Description
Poetry. UNDERSTORIES is an exploration of things visible mostly to the inner eye and memory, things below the surface. "A Perfect Afternoon" follows an unfulfilled romance through significant moments and years to elegy for what never was. The second section, "Functional Families," considers the theme of family, especially mothers, and moves through varying visions of family to a sort of resolution though the poet's mothering of her own son. The third section, "Going the Distance for Poetry," focuses on poetry and art, some of the connections that make the poetic quest possible, literary, artistic and natural. The final section looks at New York, Toronto, Florence, ancient Rome, Mayan Mexico through the lens of history and memory, alternating sorrow for loss with belief in the power of poetry to preserve. One of the themes of UNDERSTORIES is "where does the story end?" and the book takes the long view, writing beyond the apparent ending. This is a book where ghosts walk.
Author Bio
Elizabeth Greene is the author of three collections of poetry: UNDERSTORIES (Inanna Publications, 2014), The Iron Shoes (2007) and MOVING (Inanna, 2010). She edited and contributed to We Who Can Fly: Poems, Essays and Memories in Honour of Adele Wiseman (1997), which won the Betty and Morris Aaron Prize for Best Scholarship on a Canadian Subject, 1998. She has edited/co-edited four other books, including Kingston Poets' Gallery (2006), The Window of Dreams: New Canadian Writing for Children with Mary Alice Downie and M.-A. Thompson (1986); On the Threshold: Writing Toward the Year 2000 with Foxglove Collective, T. Anne Archer, Mary Cavanagh, Tara Kainer, Janice Kirk (1999); and Common Magic: The Book of the New, with Danielle Gugler (2008). Her poetry and fiction has also been published in journals and magazines across North America. She taught English for many years at Queen's University, and was instrumental in introducing Creative Writing into the English Department and helped to found Women's Studies. Her poetry was a finalist for Descant/Winston Collins Prize for Best Canadian Poem, 2010, 2012. She lives in Kingston with her son and three cats.
Author City: Kingston, ON CAN