Using an unconventional blend of traditional and avant-garde forms, this collection of poetry explores both the elegiac tradition and the 21st century attitude of remembrance and grief. Encountering a wide range of arresting events—from a best friend’s suicide to the war in Afghanistan and improvised memorials to the plastinate corpses of Body Worlds—these innovative poems survey the forces and forms that shape what and how people mourn. The lively lines, vivid images, and richly-textured voices of the collection are composed in various forms—the lyric, the ballad, the graphic poem, and the fabricated document, among others—as a means of grappling with the many acts and practices that link the living and the dead. “I should say, I am quite excited by, and envious of, Tightrope's vision in putting together this and other 'Best Of' anthologies. I'd thought of doing something similar, and never got around to it, daunted by the task. I think they should be congratulated, as these volumes fill much needed voids, and have been handled in a very professional and engaging fashion. I'll be picking up a copy and urge you handful of Thirsty readers to do the same. These are publications we should support in any way possible.” Daniel Scott Tysdal is the author of Predicting the Next Big Advertising Breakthrough Using a Potentially Dangerous Method (Coteau 2006), which received the ReLit Award for Poetry (2007) and the Anne Szumigalski Poetry Award (2006). His work has appeared in a number of Canadian literary journals and has earned him both an honourable mention at the 2003 National Magazine Awards and a place in the finals of the CBC’s 2005 National Poetry Face-Off. He teaches creative writing and English literature at the University of Toronto, Scarborough.
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