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”

Jennifer Bowering Delisle (she/her) is the author of the lyric family memoir The Bosun Chair (NeWest 2017). She is a settler living in Edmonton/ Amiskwacîwâskahican/ Treaty 6 territory.

Jennifer Bowering Delisle’s lyric family memoir The Bosun Chair was published with NeWest press in 2017. She has a PhD in English, and is also the author of The Newfoundland Diaspora: Mapping the Literature of Outmigration. She joined the board of NeWest in 2018, and regularly teaches creative writing at the University of Alberta Faculty of Extension. She is a settler living in Edmonton/ Amiskwacîwâskahican/ Treaty 6 territory with her husband and two young children.

Jennifer Bowering Delisle's profile page

• Short-listed, Book Cover Design | Alberta Book Publishing Awards, Book Publishers Association of Alberta

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