In her third collection of poems, Nancy Jo Cullen once again turns her questing and multidimensional mind to the nature of madness, addiction, impermanence and loss. This confessional collection takes an unflinching look at the path of a life’s destruction to create a harrowing chronicle of bereavement. As Zoe Whittall says, “Nancy Jo Cullen gets to the guts of grief, revealing its complexity with wit and poetic precision.”

In 2006 Nancy Jo Cullen’s life partner died after a long struggle with mental illness and addiction. Untitled Child examines the trajectory of the end of the marriage between the two women and the author tries to understand her role in a series of painful events.

The poems are confessional in the vein of poets such as Anne Sexton. Cullen tries to get inside the skin of the mess of what once appeared to be the perfectly suburban life. Untitled Child is part memoir, part rant and part lament as Cullen examines the rage, grief and surprise about the terrible havoc that addiction can reap on a life.

Nancy Jo Cullen’s poetry and fiction have appeared in The Puritan, Grain, filling Station, Plenitude, Prairie Fire, Arc, This Magazine, Best Canadian Poetry 2018, Room, Journey Prize and Best Canadian Fiction 2012. Nancy is the 2010 recipient for the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ+ Emerging Writers. She’s published three collections of poetry with Frontenac House and a collection of short stories, Canary, with Biblioasis. Her first novel, The Western Alienation Merit Badge, was shortlisted for the 2020 Amazon Canada First Novel Award.

Nancy Jo Cullen's profile page