Backhand Through the Mother

In this second collection of poetry, Backhand Through The Mother, poet Renee Norman, picks up several thematic threads from her first book, True Confessions (Inanna Publications, 2005), and weaves them into poems about mothering, aging and loss set amongst the cultural traditions of family and Judaism. Relationships between mothers and daughters are celebrated, deconstructed, and mourned, as the poems resonate with the slippage of time and the emptiness of hands once full and busy. From babyhood to adolescence to young adulthood, Norman writes about the poignancy of motherhood, set against her own aging and the illness, death, and widowhood of aging parents. She also writes hopefully and with some humour as she navigates her daughters’ growing pains, middle-age, her Jewish background, and the legacies our parents leave us.

AUTHOR

Renee Norman

Renee Norman is an award-winning poet, a writer and a teacher. Her first volume of poetry, True Confessions, was awarded the Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Award for Poetry in 2006. Her second book of poetry, Backhand Through the Mother, was published in 2007. Renee completed her graduate work at UBC and received the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies Outstanding Dissertation Award for her dissertation, which was published as a book by Peter Lang, New York. She has received several poetry and non-fiction prizes for her work. Currently Renee is a literacy consultant for Vancouver School Board. She lives in Coquitlam, British Columbia.