To change and heal takes great courage. To reconcile is to truly face yourself and ask the questions: Why am I angry, shameful, hateful and prejudiced? Why does fear have control of me so profoundly? Why is it so easy to move to prejudice, to be manipulative, to think of myself as better than? Susan Wismer’s new collection of astounding poetry reconciles identity and truth, if truth can even be found.
“These barefoot poems swing through a muscular crone hagiography, shape-shifting their ways through all the best dances. From a crown of sonnets through her “footnotes for edge-walking,” Susan Wismer’s poetic spareness makes visible the filigreed layers of resilience that make aging look not only good, but great. Join the party with these Hag Dances!”
– Tanis MacDonald, author of Straggle: Adventures in Walking while Female
“I have been reading Susan Wismer’s poems for years, here and there, in journals and anthologies. It was like finding a single egg under a tree or a fragment of shell. It is astonishing, then, to watch her “long song soar,” as this full collection lands and roosts. Wismer has built a nest out of words and images, bits of dog fur and well-worn cloth. What a splendid debut!”
– Ariel Gordon, author of Siteseeing: Writing nature and climate across the prairies
This book was made with the generous support of the Manitoba Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.
The weight of history lies on the spine of memory.
