In the early '90s, Lorraine Gane's fiancé was diagnosed with inoperable cancer, dying nine months later during a bone marrow operation in New York City. This first collection of poems chronicles her journey through doctor offices and hospitals, but also reveals through dreams and monologue a deeper response to the death and its aftermath. Her intense, sometimes stark, but consistently sharp voice moves the text through an intimate story of love, loss and renewal. In a series of linked prose poems using elements from ancient myth ("Descent: Crossing the Dream"), she takes the reader into a archetypal world of grief and dissolution, exploring territory rarely attempted in poetic narrative. The final sequences show a fine lyrical sensibility in which Gane's loss is transcended into such a state of grace "where nothing matters but the heart that continues its wild beat searching for the skull of its birth." The result is a powerful memorial that helps us navigate our own losses and the deeper dimensions beyond our pain and mortality.
About the Author
Lorraine Gane's poetry, essays, reviews and articles have been published across Canada, the U.S. and Britain. She has taught writing at such universities and colleges as Ryerson, McMaster and Georgian, and now lives with her partner on Salt Spring Island, B.C., where she is completing the sequels to this collection, A Winter in Egypt and Island of the Dove, from which a chapbook, Earth Light, was recently published.
