Sweet
I spent the whole day yesterday going to several indie and used bookstores in downtown Toronto with a friend. In one of the stories, a small, cozy indie bookshop, I found this little gem on the overcrowded bookshelf in the poetry section, and it instantly caught my eye. The colours on the title page, and the font of the title, were what right away made me interested in it, and the lowered price proved too impossible to resist. And am I ever glad I brought this home.
Despite being short, the poems sure pack a punch, and delight with their wonderful imagery and strong, focused language. My personal favourites were "Ghost Umbilical", "Inventory", and "Survival Technique No. 7: Pairs", although there were a handful of others that were just wonderful, although there were so many that naming them all would be like naming most of the poem titles. Only a couple of them I wasn't really feeling, but even then I really admired them from a literary perspective.
It was a strange but wonderful collection that I wouldn't have come across if I hadn't felt adventurous yesterday, and I'm glad to be adding it to my personal collection. "Sweet" proves that just because poetry is published by a small press doesn't mean it's any less good than the big names in publishing, and in this case, "Sweet" is even better.
