Karen Solie’s most recent collection of poems is The Caiplie Caves. She teaches poetry and writing in Canada and for the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
Constellation
Karen Solie
Three months after Steven Heighton’s passing, I keep returning to the opening lines of Tomas Tranströmer’s “After a Death”: “Once there was a shock / that left behind a long, shimmering comet tail.” The residue of the shock hasn’t settled . . .
Brick 110
Mortar
Karen Solie
Mortar, the stuff that binds the aggregate, is itself a composite substance, and similarly composite is my foundation as a writer. I find that final phrase discomfiting for reasons I’m not altogether clear on, but in part because I suspect . . .
Brick 100
The Review: The Wife of Martin Guerre by Janet Lewis
Karen Solie
Recently, a friend loaned me two of Janet Lewis’s novels, The Wife of Martin Guerre and The Trial of Sören Qvist, published in 1941 and 1947 respectively. The Ghost of Monsieur Scarron, published in 1959, completes a trilogy . . .
Brick 98
For C. D. Wright
Karen Solie
I remember very clearly when I first read C. D. Wright. A dim winter afternoon in Edmonton, 2005, in Audrey’s Books on Jasper Avenue. Browsing the poetry section, I picked out Deepstep Come Shining. Knew I’d buy it before . . .
Brick 97
A Conversation with Ken Babstock
Karen Solie
An excerpt