The world in Carolyn Marie Souaidœs latest collection is both an act of the imagination and a responsibility. Souaidœs poems zoom in and out, shifting focus to accommodate varied dimensions of experience. We move from the breakdown of a relationship to primordial ooze to a suicide bomb to a son doing his math homework. In a disarmingly personable voice, Souaid investigates our darker moments, faces up to losses and failures both intimate and public, often with wry humour. If our world is an imperfect invention, it is also, for Souaid, a source of wonder where the trick was not to fall asleep but to notice everything / in its brevity.·.

Poems.