Wislawa Szymborksa’s poems in translation — both ones I first read about 20 years ago and ones recently new to me — have been satisfying me at deep levels with their mixes of the everyday and the surreally fanciful, the grieving and the humorous, the raw and the powerfully shaped. Last month I read a few of the poems to my brother-in-law in a hospital during his final week of life.
Fiddlehead poetry editor Ian LeTourneau and local Fredericton poet Lynn Davies were on CBC Fredericton's Information Morning last Friday, July 8 to give their summer reading recommendations. You can listen to the podcast here.
What do you plan on reading this summer? Read something recently you'd like to recommend? Let us know in the comments!
Photo by Colleen Kitts-Goguen.
Here's a picture of the recent books received at the office. What are you most looking forward to reading? Tell us! Go to the comment field below (or to Facebook or Twitter) and tell us what you're most looking forward to reading!
Here's a picture of the recent books received at the office. What are you most looking forward to reading? Tell us! Go to the comment field below (or to Facebook or Twitter) and tell us what you're most looking forward to reading!
The Fiddlehead office receives a lot of books from Canadian publishers from coast to coast to coast to consider for book reviews.
By Sarah Bernstein
At my Jewish high school in Montreal, Mordecai Richler, of course, was a bit of a hero. Whether or not he liked it, and even though he relentlessly lampooned the Jewish community, he was still one of ours. February at our school was public speaking month. So, every February, the teachers compiled and distributed a list of quotations to all of us groaning, gawky teenagers — possible speech topics from which we were to choose. . . .
By Christina Cooke
Commendations on the novel’s thematic triumphs need not be contrived by this humble author as institutions such as The New Yorker, Guardian and Financial Times have safely lionized this text as one of the most celebrated of the past two decades. But the most striking yet undervalued aspect of White Teeth, from my reading, is Smith’s awareness of the constrictions placed upon writing by those reading it — of the insistent and insufferable question demanded ad naseum, “but what does this mean?" . . .
