Guernica Editions
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Love is a very long word
Guernica Editions, Spring 2016
78 pages
Trade Paperback
ISBN13: 9781771830812
ISBN10: 1771830816
English
$18.00 Canada, $18.00 US
Read more from the Essential Poets Series
Love is a very long word explores the parallel, ambiguous realms of freedom and love -- much coveted yet unnatural states of the human mind. Combining the tradition of Balkan lyricism with narrative modernist techniques, these bold poems witness the cross-cultural world of their subjects -- from wounds to hope, struggle to wry triumph. The striking cover image for Love is a very long word is by photographer Marsida Lekaj.
We sang a very hard song /
for the cords of our throats. /
The sounds were fragile, /
the classroom walls were cold. /
In our hearts a bee was buzzing.
With their cultural roots in Albania, the poems in Love is a very long word are distinct in welcome ways from almost anything else in Canadian literature. Laconic and edged with sharp wit, they engage the necessary courage and strength of character to transform the often bleak, thwarted and alienated experiences which they recount into art of the finest, most valid sort: uncompromising, imaginative, and deeply true to life.
Allan Briesmaster
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