The title of Elsie K. Neufeld's latest poetry collection, available through Lipstick Press, reveals loss and grief as they work through the seasons of birth, growth, death and re-birth of a garden.
The chapbook epigraph alludes to the indefinable spirit:
on a grey day
a yellow leaf
scrambles across
the road
who’s there?
This fleeting question acknowledges the way we are haunted without attaching it to a theory. Elsie's poetic gift addresses what is often felt but can't be seen. She is no stranger to that presence.
Elsie grew up with stories that brought home the ghosts of her ancestors who never made it out of Russia. As a young girl she would write to family she had never met, and couldn't expect to meet, as they were in Siberia and Germany.
Later losing a brother, a brother-in-law, a father, a sister-in-law, and several dear friends, established too early the fleeting aspect of all forms uniting in grief: "Trees startle, / colours drift off as we continue / to learn – as everyone must – / the terribleness of unhinging /" (Mums on the Stairs, page 17).
"Family, friends, memoir work, reading, gardening and volunteering with hospice continue to befuddle, challenge, astonish and enrich" her life, and so Elsie concludes "that life is, and always will be, a mixture of muck, madness and glory. Writing is the perfect container for all. Hence, Grief Blading Up."
Published by Lipstick Press
767 Chelwood Road, RR 1
Gabriola BC V0R 1X1
lipstickpress@shaw.ca
ISBN: 978-0-9781204-3-6
24 pages
Cover photo: Janet Vickers
$8 plus shipping and handling
To order send an email to lipstickpress@shaw.ca
(We are currently out of stock of this book, but if you let us know you would like a copy, we will look into re-printing a second run)
Elsie grew up with stories that brought home the ghosts of her ancestors who never made it out of Russia. As a young girl she would write to family she had never met, and couldn't expect to meet, as they were in Siberia and Germany.
Later losing a brother, a brother-in-law, a father, a sister-in-law, and several dear friends, established too early the fleeting aspect of all forms uniting in grief: "Trees startle, / colours drift off as we continue / to learn – as everyone must – / the terribleness of unhinging /" (Mums on the Stairs, page 17).
"Family, friends, memoir work, reading, gardening and volunteering with hospice continue to befuddle, challenge, astonish and enrich" her life, and so Elsie concludes "that life is, and always will be, a mixture of muck, madness and glory. Writing is the perfect container for all. Hence, Grief Blading Up."
Published by Lipstick Press
767 Chelwood Road, RR 1
Gabriola BC V0R 1X1
lipstickpress@shaw.ca
ISBN: 978-0-9781204-3-6
24 pages
Cover photo: Janet Vickers
$8 plus shipping and handling
To order send an email to lipstickpress@shaw.ca
(We are currently out of stock of this book, but if you let us know you would like a copy, we will look into re-printing a second run)
2 comments:
The cover photo is gorgeous, Janet.
I'm looking forward to getting a copy and reading the book. Will you be letting us know when you schedule a launch?
for sure we will let you know when the launch is to be - and thanks for your comment.
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