Here is the work of a masterful and much-honed poet at the peak of her powers. Sharp and strong as steel blades, these poems fuse eerie beauty with gleaming wit, and strangeness with tenderness. In showing the intersection of the mundane and the domestic with the uncouth and uncanny, the author lives up to such praise as “an artist … whose sensitivity to language is characteristic of the truly great in poetry” (R.W. Stedingh) and “Young moves in and out of time and worlds, never flagging or faltering and takes the reader with her” (Susan Musgrave). These are “poems to understand life by” (Rick Gibbs).

Patricia Young has published eleven books of poetry, most recently, Night-Eater, which was shortlisted for the Dorothy Livesay Award in 2010. She has received numerous awards for her poetry including the CBC Literary Prize, the Pat Lowther Award, The Dorothy Livesay Award, the Bliss Carmen Award, two National Magazine Awards, Arc's Poem of the Year Award and the Confederation Poet's Prize. Two of her collections have been shortlisted for the Governor General's Award. Her collection of short fiction, Airstream, won the Rooke-Metcalf Prize and was named one of the Globe and Mail's best books of the year. She lives in Victoria, B. C.

Patricia Young's profile page