From internationally celebrated writer and visual artist Shani Mootoo comes Cane | Fire, an immersive and vivid collection that marks a long-awaited return to poetry.

Throughout this evocative, sensual collection, akin to a poetic memoir, past and present are in conversation with each other as the narrator moves from Ireland to San Fernando, and finally to Canada. The reinterpretations and translation of this journey and its associated family history give meaning to the present. Through these deeply personal poems, and Mootoo's own artwork, we begin to understand how a life can not only be shaped, but even reimagined.

SHANI MOOTOO was born in Ireland and raised in Trinidad. Her poetry books include Oh Witness Dey!, Cane | Fire, and The Predicament of Or. She is the author of several novels, including Cereus Blooms at Night, now a Penguin Modern Classic and a Vintage Classics book, and Polar Vortex, both shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Mootoo's novels have been long and shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the Dublin Literary Award, among others. Her prose and poetry have been widely anthologized, , including in Trinidad Noir, Trinidad Noir: The Classics, and The Haunted Tropics, and her poetry has appeared in Wasafiri, Poetry Magazine, Audemas, and Room Magazine, among other magazines and journals. She has been awarded the Doctor of Letters honoris causa degree from Western University and is a recipient of Lambda Literary's James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize and the Writers' Trust Engel Findley Award. She lives in Southern Ontario, Canada.

Shani Mootoo's profile page

"From the first exquisite poems to the collection's lyrical and vulnerable culmination, Shani Mootoo undertakes a daunting and necessary vision: to extricate personal history and recast it. What emerges is bravely unruly, with viscerally felt lines that merge evocatively with Mootoo's visual art. This work dissolves the stuffy confines of poetry, not needing to be 'anything but [its] majestic self.'" —Doyali Islam, author of heft

"From the first exquisite poems to the collection's lyrical and vulnerable culmination, Shani Mootoo undertakes a daunting and necessary vision: to extricate personal history and recast it. What emerges is bravely unruly, with viscerally felt lines that merge evocatively with Mootoo's visual art. This work dissolves the stuffy confines of poetry, not needing to be 'anything but [its] majestic self.'" —Doyali Islam, author of heft

"Shani Mootoo’s recursive rhythms entrap us. Here are portraits—ripped, coloured in, mirrored, crossed out, hybridized. Here is anti-history, fractal geography, 'an escarpment of logic / a story told / falling.' Cane | Fire is a powerful and deeply intelligent confrontation of self and what is sustained in the embers." —Madhur Anand, Governor General's Literary Award-winning author of This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart

"Mootoo's artworks, most of which feature some sort of collage and reassembly, shift the effects of memory, of line, of sound, of relation and amplify the transformative possibilities of these poems." —Winnipeg Free Press

“Holding this book, and experiencing the way the art is laid out on the page was a true experience by itself. When the poems are brought into the experience, it’s further elevated."—The Miramichi Reader

"Mootoo's artworks, most of which feature some sort of collage and reassembly, shift the effects of memory, of line, of sound, of relation and amplify the transformative possibilities of these poems." —Winnipeg Free Press

“Holding this book, and experiencing the way the art is laid out on the page was a true experience by itself. When the poems are brought into the experience, it’s further elevated."—The Miramichi Reader

"Mootoo immerses her reader in Caribbean registers, layering text and family photographs with artwork featuring Hindu goddesses and gods. Making the quotidian sacred, she transports us to a Trinidad where the 'sitar hunts' and 'blind birds flew through cane-fire sweetened air.' Her poetic gift is to teach us how to read anew, trusting the'image-language' of art and poetry to speak of grief, family, and displacement, but also joy and renewal." —Quill & Quire

"Mootoo uses verse, space and art to create the images and feelings here in the collection, to great effect. . . Holding this book, and experiencing the way the art is laid out on the page was a true experience by itself." —The Miramichi Reader

"Shani Mootoo’s recursive rhythms entrap us. Here are portraits—ripped, coloured in, mirrored, crossed out, hybridized. Here is anti-history, fractal geography, 'an escarpment of logic / a story told / falling.' Cane | Fire is a powerful and deeply intelligent confrontation of self and what is sustained in the embers." —Madhur Anand, Governor General's Literary Award-winning author of This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart

"Mootoo's artworks, most of which feature some sort of collage and reassembly, shift the effects of memory, of line, of sound, of relation and amplify the transformative possibilities of these poems." —Winnipeg Free Press

"From the first exquisite poems to the collection's lyrical and vulnerable culmination, Shani Mootoo undertakes a daunting and necessary vision: to extricate personal history and recast it. What emerges is bravely unruly, with viscerally felt lines that merge evocatively with Mootoo's visual art. This work dissolves the stuffy confines of poetry, not needing to be 'anything but [its] majestic self.'" —Doyali Islam, author of heft

“Holding this book, and experiencing the way the art is laid out on the page was a true experience by itself. When the poems are brought into the experience, it’s further elevated."—The Miramichi Reader

"Mootoo's artworks, most of which feature some sort of collage and reassembly, shift the effects of memory, of line, of sound, of relation and amplify the transformative possibilities of these poems." —Winnipeg Free Press

"Mootoo uses verse, space and art to create the images and feelings here in the collection, to great effect. . . Holding this book, and experiencing the way the art is laid out on the page was a true experience by itself." —The Miramichi Reader

"Mootoo uses verse, space and art to create the images and feelings here in the collection, to great effect. . . Holding this book, and experiencing the way the art is laid out on the page was a true experience by itself." —The Miramichi Reader

"Mootoo uses verse, space and art to create the images and feelings here in the collection, to great effect. . . Holding this book, and experiencing the way the art is laid out on the page was a true experience by itself." —The Miramichi Reader

"Shani Mootoo’s recursive rhythms entrap us. Here are portraits—ripped, coloured in, mirrored, crossed out, hybridized. Here is anti-history, fractal geography, 'an escarpment of logic / a story told / falling.' Cane | Fire is a powerful and deeply intelligent confrontation of self and what is sustained in the embers." —Madhur Anand, Governor General's Literary Award-winning author of This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart