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The Dream World

Author Alison Pick
Ebook
McClelland & Stewart
On sale Feb 24, 2009 | 80 Pages | 9781551992457
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In her elegant new collection, Alison Pick, a brilliant poet of sensuous moods, atmospheres, and dreams, explores the mystery concealed within the world we know and recognize. Always evocative, always alluring, her poems are not interested in mere events, but in the fabric inside the emotions that events can provoke. She writes of love, of leaving, of wandering, and of home — not necessarily in that order. With captivating language and shining imagery, her poems travel out through layers of landscape — residential, geographic, emotional, cerebral — creating a guidebook to the hidden, a sparkling tour through the lush and varied backcountry of human experience.
Not Talking


When you leave I go to the wood
that wears its being like a loose down
vest. Windfall, deadfall, I duck under
words, the quiet forest assembling itself
around the thought of thought. Lie in the snow,
my face turned up. Somewhere close,
the river’s mouth is choked with last fall’s
leaves. Nothing left to say about
all our endless nothing-said, talking
held in place of touch like slides held up
to light. Naked maples, empty-handed,
reach toward that potent height where
things unseen return as form. Magic
trick, mysterious flicker: you turn and take
my hand. Lead me down the trampled trail
where language beat a fast retreat;
show me the hollow behind your heart
where all the cold’s pressed down.
We’re up to our knees now, headed for silence.
Come and lie down with me there.
Copyright © 2008 by Alison Pick. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
© Emma-Lee Photography
ALISON PICK was the 2002 winner of the Bronwen Wallace Award for the most promising young writer in Canada. She has published three acclaimed volumes of poetry, and her first novel, The Sweet Edge (2005), was a Globe and Mail "Best Book." Her second novel, the bestselling Far to Go (2010), was nominated for the Man Booker Prize, won the Canadian Jewish Award for Fiction, and was named a "Top Ten of 2010" book by the Toronto Star and NOW Magazine. It was also published internationally to acclaim. Her memoir, Between Gods, was also published internationally, was a finalist for the BC National Award for Non-Fiction, and was a Globe and Mail "Best Book" of 2014. The author lives in Toronto, Ontario. View titles by Alison Pick

About

In her elegant new collection, Alison Pick, a brilliant poet of sensuous moods, atmospheres, and dreams, explores the mystery concealed within the world we know and recognize. Always evocative, always alluring, her poems are not interested in mere events, but in the fabric inside the emotions that events can provoke. She writes of love, of leaving, of wandering, and of home — not necessarily in that order. With captivating language and shining imagery, her poems travel out through layers of landscape — residential, geographic, emotional, cerebral — creating a guidebook to the hidden, a sparkling tour through the lush and varied backcountry of human experience.

Excerpt

Not Talking


When you leave I go to the wood
that wears its being like a loose down
vest. Windfall, deadfall, I duck under
words, the quiet forest assembling itself
around the thought of thought. Lie in the snow,
my face turned up. Somewhere close,
the river’s mouth is choked with last fall’s
leaves. Nothing left to say about
all our endless nothing-said, talking
held in place of touch like slides held up
to light. Naked maples, empty-handed,
reach toward that potent height where
things unseen return as form. Magic
trick, mysterious flicker: you turn and take
my hand. Lead me down the trampled trail
where language beat a fast retreat;
show me the hollow behind your heart
where all the cold’s pressed down.
We’re up to our knees now, headed for silence.
Come and lie down with me there.
Copyright © 2008 by Alison Pick. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Author

© Emma-Lee Photography
ALISON PICK was the 2002 winner of the Bronwen Wallace Award for the most promising young writer in Canada. She has published three acclaimed volumes of poetry, and her first novel, The Sweet Edge (2005), was a Globe and Mail "Best Book." Her second novel, the bestselling Far to Go (2010), was nominated for the Man Booker Prize, won the Canadian Jewish Award for Fiction, and was named a "Top Ten of 2010" book by the Toronto Star and NOW Magazine. It was also published internationally to acclaim. Her memoir, Between Gods, was also published internationally, was a finalist for the BC National Award for Non-Fiction, and was a Globe and Mail "Best Book" of 2014. The author lives in Toronto, Ontario. View titles by Alison Pick

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