Baroness Else von Freytag Loringhoven was called the "first American Dada" and her full embrace of the radical underbelly of society makes many consider a "proto-punk" or an early performance artist.

Jan Horner's sharp and elegant poems reveal Else's character and her rough and extravagant life. She peels back the divided nature of Else's personality revealing how she chased love, and scorned it, with the same kind of determination she chased art and imagination.

The poems are sardonic yet lyrical, broken yet fearless, twisted yet sublime. The voices of Else and her friends and suitors are heard -- from her husband Fredrick Phillip Grove to her dog, Pinky. Mama Dada: Songs of the Baroness's Dog is a burlesque, an art-house of poems and secrets.

Jan Horner’s first collection of poetry, Recent Mistakes (Turnstone Press), won the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award. Her second collection, Elizabeth Went West (Turnstone Press), was a finalist for the same prize. Jan was also a finalist for the John Hirsch Award. She was a member of the editorial collective of Contemporary Verse 2 and has served on the boards of the Manitoba Writers’ Guild and the League of Canadian Poets and as a juror for many literary awards. She has a B.A. and M.A. in English from the University of Manitoba and her Masters of Library Science from the University of Toronto. Jan lives in Winnipeg and is a reference librarian at the University of Manitoba.

Jan Horner's profile page