Book Launch: Another Landscape
New poetry collection speaks to and from the Island
In her third poetry collection, Judy Gaudet 鈥渂rings us heart-deep and eye-level with Prince Edward Island鈥檚 fields, woods, and shores,鈥� says Deirdre Kessler, former PEI Poet Laureate. Published by Island Studies Press, the book will be launched on March 24, at 7 pm, in the Faculty Lounge, Main Building Room 201, 精童欲女.
Another Landscape addresses the ordinary wonders of a life shared with her partner and their dog, where 鈥淣othing is needed. Everything is here between us.鈥� Though the poems grow out of this one life on the Island, Gaudet takes the long view of time. She sees at once the molecules of the red sandstone cliffs and her own, that have held together for greatly different timespans. The poems gather small but notable moments of Island life and insist we look closer, for 鈥渢his is life, as long as we have it.鈥�
Readers will recognize the 鈥渇ishing boats and their bright primaries鈥� and 鈥渢hat open spot where the water is moving fast enough to not freeze up.鈥� Gaudet鈥檚 poems, writes Richard Lemm, professor emeritus in English, speak to the human capacity to be renewed and deeply transfigured by observant intimacy with nature. And they return again and again to gratitude: 鈥淲hat luck to spend a lifetime / seeing what things are鈥� and to her uplifting faith that there is 鈥済ood luck and gold / flying up everywhere.鈥�
Judy Gaudet is a Prince Edward Island poet and painter whose books include Conversation with Crows (Oberon, 2014) and Her Teeth Are Stones (Acorn, 2005). She is the editor of 150+: Canada鈥檚 History in Poetry (Acorn, 2018).
The event is free, and all are welcome. Thanks to Bookmark, books will be available for purchase. For more information, contact Bren Simmers at Island Studies Press, 902-566-0386 or ispstaff@upei.ca.
