Loving the Alien by Laurie Kruk
“In these powerful narrative poems, Laurie Kruk bears witness to the multiplicity and elusiveness of the self. In poems rich with stories, it’s a joy to discover the poet’s maternal grandmother, Elsie, a feisty homesteader who throws potatoes at her husband, or to witness the stories of time imprinted on women’s bodies in an aquatic class in North Bay, Ontario. The poems in Loving the Alien dance with ancestral shadow and light; they weave in and out of borders and ultimately burst through their own constructed frames.”
─Jeanette Lynes, author of Left Fields, The Aging Cheerleader's Alphabet, and A Woman Alone on the Atikokan Highway.
“Offering a series of photo-realist snap-shots of older and emerging relationships, Loving the Alien navigates the dangerous and shifting waters of mixed emotions. Linguistic play enlivens Laurie Kruk’s poetic vision with penetrating reflections illuminating the cross-fire angst and terra incognita of an odyssey of the heart.”
─Karl Jirgens, Editor-in-Chief, Rampike."The poems in Loving the Alien are rich with Kruk’s unique, wryly perceptive wit and her talent for keen, precise observations of human behaviour. Her lyric style includes a gift for dialogue that rings true, rendering an authenticity to the personae of the poems. Like the “Kodak” moments that appear in these poems, the snapshot views of family photographs move us through memory with a sensibility that is bittersweet, poignant, and visceral. Kruk’s strength is her ability to achieve this without indulging in sentimental nostalgia. This is a collection to savour, an articulate and eloquent book that sustains an ethic of care and humane compassion."
─Rishma Dunlop, author of Reading Like a Girl and Metropolis
Now Available!
Book Details
October, 2006
ISBN 1-896350-20-8
102pp. softcover
Price $14.00
Excerpts
Poem - Charlie and Elsie
About the Author
Laurie Kruk published her first book of poetry, Theories of the World, in 1992, the same year she received her doctorate from the University of Western Ontario. After enjoying a postdoctoral year of study in Vancouver, she was lured to Northern Ontario, to teach English at newly-independent Nipissing University of North Bay. There her adventures expanded to include marriage, a dog, a sojourn on Trout Lake, camping, two daughters and a step-son. Since her early days of feeling like an "alien," she has grown to love "the near North"--its dramatic landscapes, resilient inhabitants and strong sense of community. Specializing in Canadian Literature, Kruk is also the author of The Voice is the Story: Conversations with Canadian Writers of Short Fiction (2003).