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Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway
Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway | Alexandra Oliver
3 posts | 1 read
A CANADIAN POETRY BOOK OF THE YEAR, THE NATIONAL POST WINNER OF THE PAT LOWTHER MEMORIAL AWARD Alexandra Oliver has many arrows in her quiverall of them sharpened to a fine point. This is an excellent and entertaining collection.TIMOTHY STEELE In Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway, Alexandra Oliver zooms in on the inertias, anxieties, comedies, cruelties, and epiphanies of domestic life: They all had names like Jennifer or Lynne or Katherine; they all had bone-blonde hair, that wet, flat cut with bangs. They pulled your chair from underneath you, shoved their small fists in your face. Too soon, you knew it would begin, those minkish teeth like shrapnel in the air, the Bacchic taunts, the Herculean dare, their soccer cleats against your porcine shin, that laugh, which sounded like a hundred birds escaping from a gunshot through the reeds and now you have to face it all again: the joyful freckled faces lost for words in supermarkets, as those red hands squeeze your own. Its been so long! They say. Amen. Olivers poems, which she describes as text-based home movies, unveil a cinematic vision of suburbia at once comical and poignant: framed to renew our curiosity in the mundane and pressing rhyme and metre to their utmost, Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway is a five-star performance from Canadas new formalist sensation. Alexandra Oliver is in full command of a saber wit and impeccable ear. Lucky the reader along for the ride.JEANNE MARIE BEAUMONT Brilliantly contemporary poems in traditional forms, the work of a stunning new voice.CHARLES MARTIN Alexandra Oliver was born in Vancouver, Canada and divides her time between Toronto and Glasgow, Scotland. Her most recent book is Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway (Biblioasis). She currently teaches in the Stonecoast MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine.
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BookHermit
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Quantum Pong 3
Jessica Eaton

“Like bubbles in a nothing”

That moment when you‘re reading a poem that references art by a woman you knew in high school who is is now a very successful and immensely talented photographer.

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BookHermit
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“I am the one the tigers fell upon.”

tpixie

lovely
(edited) 5y
15 likes1 comment
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BookHermit
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I think I‘ve found a new favourite. Trying to add more #poetry to the rotation of novels and non-fiction. Sometimes reading is also juggling 🤹‍♀️

Who cares to share a favourite poet?

TrishB Always Plath ❤️ 5y
BookHermit @TrishB Agreed! I found Plath as a tween by typing my name into the library catalogue database. (As one does!) My name is Ariel so naturally I believed we had some sort of spiritual connection. Reading the Bell Jar confirmed it. (edited) 5y
TrishB That‘s a lovely name ❤️ I can see why you would feel a connection. 5y
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