Deriving: (Robert Kroetsch Series)

Deriving is a feminist exploration of the creation of life, of family, and of words themselves. Delisle asks: How does past infertility colour the experience of new motherhood? How do historical voices echo in the present? How does language impact our ways of being in the world? These poems embrace the rich material of mothering with unapologetic honesty, confronting the experiences that some would keep hidden. Fear, anger, envy mix with joy and ultimately hope, as Delisle considers the challenges of conceiving and raising children in both familial and global contexts. Deriving is a poignant, lyrical meditation on longing, place, and embodiment. I watched it freeze up, rafts of white snagging beneath the bridge, frazil ice, pans linked along the shoreline. Inside me my son was building white fat on bone. - from “North Saskatchewan”

Table of Contents:
CONTENTS xi Etymology 1 WATER IN A BLUE GLASS 2 Caribou 4 Seeds 6 The Way We Stand 7 Instinct 9 Reasons 10 February in Vancouver 11 Embryopathology Report 12 Gifts 18 Gravity 19 Know the Way 20 Vancouver 21 Anemochory 22 Highway 16, Near Blue River 24 To Violet 25 Spring 28 SHOEBOX PHOTOS 37 DRINK THE RIVER 38 Muskeg 39 It Never Rains 40 Two Prints 42 Ultrasound 44 Food 45 Rules 46 North Saskatchewan 47 Incongruous 48 Nurse 49 Falling Boundary 51 “THE PERFECTION OF WOMANHOOD” 52 Natural Childbirth 53 Son-of-a-Gun 54 Equivalent 55 Bikini 56 Concession / Stand 59 HOW THE RIVER CARVES OUR NAMES 60 Mother 67 One Little, Two Little, Three Little 68 Lioness 69 How Much I Want the Thing I Never Remember 70 Patience 71 September Snow 72 Go Green 73 Precarious 75 Notes 77 Acknowledgments

About the Author :
Jennifer Bowering Delisle is the author of the lyric family memoir, The Bosun Chair, a book of literary studies, The Newfoundland Diaspora, and a book of lyric essays, Micrographia. Her poetry and prose have been published in magazines and anthologies across North America. She is a settler living in Treaty 6 territory (Edmonton).

Review :
# 8 on Edmonton Poetry Bestseller list, May 9, 2021 # 9 on Edmonton Poetry Bestsellers list, May 23, 2021 # 9 on Edmonton Poetry Bestseller list, July 25, 2021 # 8 on Edmonton Poetry Bestseller list, October 10, 2021 # 5 on Edmonton Poetry Bestseller list, December 5, 2021 # 9 on Edmonton Poetry Bestseller list, December 12, 2021 # 9 on the Edmonton Poetry Bestseller List, January 2, 2022 # 5 on the Edmonton Poetry Bestseller List, February 27, 2022 # 9 on the Edmonton Poetry Bestseller List, September 18, 2022 # 3 on the Edmonton Poetry Bestsellers List, February 18, 2024 # 10 on the Edmonton Poetry Bestsellers List, August 11, 2024