Dissonance Engine is an exploration of time, cognition and loss; the intersection of dream and alternate reality amidst myriad systems of control. The collection probes these themes through a multitude of forms including prose poems, palindromes, fictional journal entries, a faux manifesto, and collage poems.

A literary Necker cube, the structure of this multilayered work reflects its subjects; anamorphic transformation on paper. Amidst poems about loss, melancholy, love, connection, longing and the natural world, Dowker scours the dissonance engine of the media spectacle, to stare into gnostic estrangement and question the "time-sensitive material" of language.

David Dowker was born in Kingston, Ontario but has lived most of his life in Toronto. He was the editor of The Alterran Poetry Assemblage, and his first book, Machine Language, was published in 2010. Christine Stewart lives on the North Saskatchewan River. She works at the University of Alberta and the Learning Centre in downtown Edmonton. Publications include from Taxonomy, Pessoa's July: or the months of astonishments and The Trees of Periphery. The Humanist is forthcoming from Red Nettle Press.

David Dowker's profile page

“Contemplating Dowker’s multilayered creation inspires me to imagine the text further, extending beyond the parameters of the machine or block of book to witness ideas and philosophies unfold in real time.”—Cloud Lake Literary

“Dowker circles specifics on language theory and grief and the mechanics of all of the above, even as his layerings combine to move in a straight trajectory.” —rob mclennan