What if words evolved in species and genera just like birds and dinosaurs? What if you classified them in kingdoms and families? Made a phylogenetic tree with orders of Space, Matter, or Intellect. Gravity and Levity as classes of Matter. With Density, Rarity, Pungency, Ululation. Would this matter taxonomy speak of the out-there, the non-human? Or the in-here ï?? the human mind, the sorting, reasoning human ï?? homo linguis the word maker, the world maker? Formally innovative, Matter explores Roget's taxonomy, rummaging its taint of globalism and social Darwinism, unearthing relations between humans, language and the planet. Matter asks what if words are so many birds, chirping and chattering? What is thought? What is knowledge? What's your life list of words?

Meredith Quartermain is a poet and novelist living in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her first book of poetry, Vancouver Walking, won a BC Book Award for poetry; Recipes from The Red Planet was a finalist for a BC Book Award for fiction; and Nightmarker was a finalist for a Vancouver Book Award. A novel called Rupert's Land was released by NeWest Press in Fall 2013. She has since published a collection of stories entitled I, Bartleby, in 2015, and a novel, U Girl, in 2016. She is also cofounder of Nomados Literary Publishers, who have brought out more than 45 chapbooks of innovative Canadian and US writing since 2002. From 2014 to 2016, she was Poetry Mentor in the SFU Writer's Studio Program, and she has enjoyed leading workshops at the Kootenay School of Writing, The Toronto New School of Writing and Naropa University. In Spring 2020, her latest collection of poems, Lullabies in the Real World, will be released as a part of the Crow Said Poetry Series.

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