Spring Poetry Party with Leesa Dean, Jamella Hagen and Lisa Richter

The poems in Interstitial probe the porous nature of existence, examining the ways in which the world, the body and the self are all liminal spaces. Writing in the interstitial time between the deaths of her parents, and using an array of forms and registers, author Leesa Dean turns a clear eye on the difficulties of family secrets, grief that is solitary and grief that is shared, lost languages, violence, recovery and resilience. These poems move from injury to reconciliation, demonstrating that we are strongest when we allow our shared narratives to weave us into a greater constellation than our individual lives afford.

Perfect Weather by Jamella Hagen is a collection of poems about many things — the destabilizing force of climate change, the particularity of living in the Yukon, the tender intensity of becoming a parent — but mostly it’s about relationships, the fraught and sustaining nature of building connections with other people. The book opens in a space of high conflict as a wildfire marks out a pattern of relationship breakdown. Later, a fictional series about northern jobs and an interlude about the liminal days of early parenthood lead toward a space of cautious gratitude and peace in the final section. The poems are free verse but fall into various modes and patterns, including work with couplets as well as odes and loose sonnets.

In Sublunary, Lisa Richter explores what it’s like to live “under the moon” in a world that is simultaneously a heartbreak and a total wonder. Sweetmeats and ocelots rain from the sky. Pets are shadow puppets. A kitten impersonates a teacup. A grieving daughter travels back in time to be at her father’s side in the final hours of his life. Newlyweds soar over the rooftops of west-end Toronto, passing a violin-playing goat along the way. From Atlantis to Mount Olympus to Christie Pits, these poems interweave moments of absurdity and awe, creating a nuanced portrait of what “a reckless intimacy with the world” might look like — for better or worse. Sublunary is a book of elegy, play, and rupture that advocates for an ethics of care, solidarity, and compassion for our perfectly imperfect selves and each other: a mode of survival that is full-throated and, at times, even joyous.