Slide

In her debut collection, Slide, Barbara Myers plays with the eternal present, the nunc stans, taking us through time and space, over three continents, where people, places and events continue to co-exist in memory and in the body. Instructions for the Era of Water is the opening poem in a series focusing on the mysteries of change, evanescence and renewal. Here, where the sea has taken its place leaning against the wall, Myers contemplates floating settlements and amphibious houses. In another poem, a family takes summer swims while soldiers train across the river in Petawawa for duty in Afghanistan. Other poems explore science, cats and paradox – even the curse of corn on genetic modifiers. By turns playful and sober, the poems in these pages, which represent and distill ten years’ work, spring from experiences in Ottawa – its storied Lowertown where the author now lives – and Halifax, where part of her remains, while also taking in the communities in between, and the Ocean Limited, that crosses salt marshes back and forth into the peninsula of Nova Scotia. Whether in form, near-form, or free form, these are poems with an ear to sound and the music of language, accessible and seamlessly crafted.