A Revision of Forward

By turns tender and rough-hewn, and always structurally inventive, the poems in Wendy McGrath’s new collection show a writer reaching the height of her creative powers.

Whether evoking the vulgar give-and-take of a men’s poker night, fleeting moments of connection between mothers and sons, afternoons spent in overgrown backyard gardens, or wondrous childhood trips to the drive-in, McGrath’s feel for the bygone details of working-class life is uncanny. The book’s highlight is the playful poetic sequence that gives the book its title, the product of a more-than-decade-long improvisational collaboration with printmaker Walter Jule, a series of not-quite-mirror poems whose meanings reflect on each other in kaleidoscopic ways.

AUTHOR

Wendy McGrath

Wendy McGrath was born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. Her poetry and short fiction has been published in such publications as Descant, Poetry in Motion, and the NeWest Review. Her previous novel, Recurring Fictions, was released through the University of Alberta Press in 2002. Santa Rosa, was published by NeWest Press in April 2011, and its followup, North East, arrived in October 2014. Her next project, a poetry collection by the name of A Revision of Forward, was released in Fall 2015.

Reviews

Praise for A Revision of Forward:

Walter Jule’s visual images are aids to meditation, communicating on an intuitive level that which cannot be expressed in words. In them we experience in suspended time the knife’s edge between creation and destruction.”
~ Jennifer Dickson, C.M

“Wendy McGrath shows how a poetic novelty, the mirror poem, can become an important new form. Hamlet spoke of holding the mirror up to nature. McGrath holds the mirror up to art, but she also tells us about the nature of desire and separation, about truth and lies.”
~ Bert Almon, author of A Ghost in Waterloo Station

“[f]ragmentary and experimental, impressionistic daguerrotypes of everyday life.”
~ Bruce Cinnamon, VUE Weekly

“Its stanzas experiment with the visual aspect of text, spreading out across largely blank pages with their own quiet artfulness.”
~ Brent Wittmeier, Edmonton Journal

“She has given substance top billing, and this collection is rich with detail, honing in on the most delicate, intangible moments and weaving in the raw, often conflicting beauty of city and nature, creating whole new textures with the experiences exposed within.”
~ Quill & Quire