Orion Sweeping

By Anne Marie Todkill

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 GERALD LAMPERT MEMORIAL AWARD

Anne Marie Todkill's debut recalibrates the anxiety of the present. It gives doubt a hearing, finding resilience in fragility and grace in unexpected places.

The poems assembled in Orion Sweeping take nothing at face value. What are we to make of a radioactive souvenir, a shape-shifting dog, landscapes made strange by time? The speakers gathered here seek to set the record straight: a mink gives advice; a wolf disputes a rumour; a photographer zooms in on a kill; a military strategist gives lessons in peace. But the sum of the evidence is not bleak. A baby arrives as robustly as a whale; the solidarity of marriage is enacted in surprising ways; father and daughter share a gift for reprieve. Under the penetrating gaze of these poems, beauty and tenderness come quietly into view.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1771315695
• ISBN13: 9781771315692
• Release Date: April 2022
• Publisher: Brick Books
• Length: 98 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.7" x 8.5"