Ellen McGinn's Reading Recommendation

Ellen McGinn's Reading Recommendation:

Leah Horlick’s book of poetry, Moldovan Hotel, draws upon her travels to Romania where she revisits the region from which her Jewish ancestors fled persecution. There are so many lines that I loved, that I underlined, that I want to quote, but if I start I would be recounting every poem in the book. Right from the first poem with its incantatory title, “For You Shall Be Called for Account,” Leah Horlick takes apart a time, a place, a history, and with these broken bits puts together a revelatory remembering of her family’s diaspora. Images of long dead relatives turning into shawls, candlesticks, suitcases, of the tangle of “blue-dark forest” growing out of “the ceiling of the hostel” and “the legs of the bed frame,” stick in my mind the way shadows of old fairy tales still haunt me. And then there is the weight of ghosts on every page, and shapes that might be doors, or a border; uncertainties and hidden things that she finds words for through the unblinking clarity of her gaze. Not every book of poetry is a page turner, but this one is. “I have come back/ to close the gate behind me.”, Horlick says at the end of the poem, “Moldovan Hotel.” Thank you for your going, and for your return. 

Ellen McGinn lives on Saturna Island with her husband and their dog. A graduate of the University of British Columbia’s MFA programme, she has published a book of poetry, From Dark Horse Road and her essay "Tabernacle" was published in the 2022 creative nonfiction issue of The Fiddlehead. Her plays were produced in the Vancouver and Victoria fringe festivals. Her current play, Antarctica Welcomes International Women’s Year 1975 is in its third draft. One of her favourite things was volunteering with Students On Ice.