Robin Richardson’s debut poetry collection is startling in its lyrical inventiveness and stylistic flair. Drawing heavily on her background as a visual artist, Grunt of the Minotaur offers poems rich in imagery and visual texture. Larger themes from history, art, music, and film are cast against moments of domestic intimacy in fanciful narratives and sprightly, impressionistic lyrics. Here are poems that are equally melodic and pictorial, at once alien and familiar; reading them helps to restore our sense of wonder in the world around us.

Robin Richardson is the author of three collections of poetry, including Sit How You Want (named one of the best books of the year by CBC Books and winner of the 2019 Trillium Book Award for Poetry), and is Editor-in-Chief at Minola Review. Her work has appeared in Salon, POETRY, The American Poetry Review, The Walrus, Hazlitt, Best Canadian Poetry, and Tin House, among others. She holds an MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College, and a BD in Design from OCAD University. She has won the Fortnight Poetry Prize in the U.K., The John B. Santorini Award, The Joan T. Baldwin Award, and has been shortlisted for the CBC, Walrus, and ARC Poetry Prizes, among others. She lives in Toronto.

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“These fresh, fire-bright poems are barbed blooms petalled with wise cautions and unexpected joy.” —Kevin Connolly

“Flaunting a painterly attention to the seductive textures of menace—here are portraits, still lifes, fables and allegorical tableaux that enrapture the ear with the textures of language itself.” —Suzanne Buffam

“Richardson writes for the ear, eye and mouth—you’ll want to read these lush poems out loud.” —Matthea Harvey