Teethmarks

Teethmarks offers a cutting examination of contemporary society, from the personal to the global. The "fuzzy" simplicity of childhood at the book's outset is deftly shadowed by details of cigarette butts in the girl's room, the scent of burning leaves and teeth marks on Barbie dolls (From the dog, Terry assures her, when he was a puppy.) From there on in, Queyras embarks on a dynamic exploration of form in poems sharply aware of shifting boundaries, groundlessness, the seedy pastoral of childhood and the difficulty of maintaining community and family in our increasingly fragmented lives. Teeth Marks merges lives constructed by B-movies and the daily news, transposing their black-and-white "realities" with palettes of vital colour.

About the Author :
Sina Queyras is an accomplished poet and essayist. She edited the first anthology of Canadian poetry published by an American press (Open Field: 30 Contemporary Canadian Poets). Between 2005 and 2007 she co-curated the path-breaking feminist Belladonna* reading series in New York and was instrumental in bringing Canadian and American poets into conversation. She has published six books of poetry and a novel, Autobiography of Childhood (2011). She received the Pat Lowther Award and a Lambda Literary Award for Lemon Hound (2006). Her most recent book of poetry is MxT (2014).

Review :
"Queyras's poems are solidly grounded on a distinct sense of place. These various locations incisively and persistently point to aspects of "home": first, because of their active engagement with and relentless interrogation of the present and the self, and second, because of their frank and vivid portrayal of parental figures and childhood/teenage moments." -Lydia Forssander-Song, Canadian Book Review "These poems evoke the contemporary scene of New Jersey with details like discarded water bottles and old condoms; they look back into the area's history, and travel out on the highways to the places where the city stretches past littered roads and power lines into the wild... The poem ['Me Victorious'] is as frantic as a yuppie who gleans from their kid's Ritalin supply, and it should be read aloud... Queyras describes the twisted adult world through the eyes of a child with a sense of wonder and dread... [and] shows it is better to get to know the dark side rather than pretend it's all rainbows and smiley sunshine." -Ian Sullivan, Matrix "Teethmarks tackles the terrifying territory of loss and love, yet avoids sentimentality. While opening doors to the dark truths of childhood, it also reveals the irony of living in the abundance and squalor that is present-day America... A provocative and satisfying book... well worth rereading and pondering." -Jennifer Boire, Prairie Fire "Teethmarks is a gutsy, enthralling effort to bring words themselves - in all their sing-song beauty and horror - back to us. Wow . . ." -Chris Devito, CO-OP/CiTR/CJSF Radio "Her poetic lines can be clipped to the absolute breaking point to convey the fractured nature of our lives, or go on without stopping, showing how we relentlessly push ourselves . . . Queyras effectively brings together the little and the large, leaving you lots to hang on to, ways to join in." -Jacqueline Turner, The Georgia Straight