With searing imagery and a startling sense of the particular, in Rove, Graham explores the core truths behind the "emptying out" of the family farm. She calls up, too, prairie suburban place, through an investigation of its plants, animals, and most trodden routes-those things that continue to differentiate one suburban place from the next-as suburban spaces continue to proliferate and falter. Using a variety of poetic styles: lyricizing the vernacular, assembling narrative out of lyric, Graham writes of her maternal Ukrainian prairie roots. Inspired by Andrew Suknaski's poetry, Laurie D Graham has created a new poetic landscape of her own, in this exciting and expansive first book of poetry.

Laurie D Graham grew up in Sherwood Park, Alberta, and now lives in Toronto, where she is assistant editor for Brick, A Literary Journal and an instructor at Humber College. Her poems have been published in Carousel, CV2, Event, FreeFall, The Malahat Review, Room, Other Voices and subTerrain.

Laurie D. Graham's profile page

• Short-listed, Gerald Lampert Award