HARROWINGS

By (author): Cecily Nicholson

HARROWINGS takes place mainly in the rural and reconnects with a history of Black intellectual and artistic history in relation to agriculture. The poems include pulses of memoir from the poet’s childhood growing up in the country on a farm. These experiences connect to her volunteer work during the recent pandemic, on a local “prison farm” – an agricultural enterprise whose leadership includes people who were formerly incarcerated. Considering movements organizing for food security, and related, resurgent practices, HARROWINGS addresses the work of cultivation. Underlying references include almanacs and Anglo idioms, drawing upon tabular information, weather, and the workings of the sun, moon, and points of stars as may be practical in relation to a localized, growing year. The poems refuse the romance of husbandry, cultivation, and predictive customs. Understanding “the farm” as a tract of colonial advance – tropes of charming and white, tradition and supremacy, are confronted in a study of biome, water, soil, and seed. With love, despite episodic and chronic illness, duress, and dissociative relationships to time – the poetry advances by way of practical tasks such as watering, weeding, and sowing toward abolitionist futures.

AUTHOR

Cecily Nicholson

Cecily Nicholson is the author of four books and a past recipient of the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. She was the Ellen and Warren Tallman Writer-in-Residence at Simon Fraser University and the Write- in-Residence at the University of Windsor. She teaches at Emily Carr University of Art + Design and collaborates with community impacted by carcerality and food insecurity.

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HARROWINGS takes place mainly in the rural and reconnects with a history of Black intellectual and artistic history in relation to agriculture. The poems include pulses of memoir from the poet’s childhood growing up in the country on a farm. These experiences connect to her volunteer work during the recent pandemic, on a local “prison farm” – an agricultural enterprise whose leadership includes people who were formerly incarcerated. Considering movements organizing for food security, and related, resurgent practices, HARROWINGS addresses the work of cultivation. Underlying references include almanacs and Anglo idioms, drawing upon tabular information, weather, and the workings of the sun, moon, and points of stars as may be practical in relation to a localized, growing year. The poems refuse the romance of husbandry, cultivation, and predictive customs. Understanding “the farm” as a tract of colonial advance – tropes of charming and white, tradition and supremacy, are confronted in a study of biome, water, soil, and seed. With love, despite episodic and chronic illness, duress, and dissociative relationships to time – the poetry advances by way of practical tasks such as watering, weeding, and sowing toward abolitionist futures.

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Details

Dimensions:

112 Pages
8.25in * 210mm * 6in * 152mm * 0.3125in8mm
138gr
4.875oz

Published:

September 30, 2022

City of Publication:

Vancouver

Country of Publication:

CA

Publisher:

Talonbooks

ISBN:

9781772014051

Book Subjects:

POETRY / Canadian

Featured In:

All Books

Language:

eng

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