PreviewsTurnstone Press
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Flyway
Sarah Ens
This long poem combines a narrative of the poet’s Mennonite grandmother’s flight to Canada with psalmodies (in a call and response) of Prairie birds and grasses, tracing connections between the Russian Mennonite diaspora and disrupted migratory patterns of grassland birds in a profound exploration of home.
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Following Sea
Lauren Carter
Carter wades into family history and geography, going back in time almost 200 years, and as far away as the Scottish Highlands, making connections between her Manitoulin memories and her current life as a poet, and exploring issues of identity, migration, and home.
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Heart’s Hydrography
Sally Ito
Whether exploring motherhood or finding God in nature and inspiration in a 17th-century devotional poet, whether playing with the style of canonical poetry or struggling with the language of liturgical texts, Ito searches for faith and a way to believe.
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love in a dry land
Dennis Cooley
Sinclair Ross’s As for Me and My House again serves as inspiration for this tender and playful long poem filled with Depression-era imagery, such as withered gardens, dust, chickens, grasshoppers, trains, lanterns, and flies – a poem of voices that are “all wind and yearning.”
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Lunatic Engine
Paul Pearson
Joining in a dialogue about science and religion that Galileo and his daughter, Suor Marie Celeste, took part in, these poems respond to the life of the “first modern man” and his illegitimate daughter, who were both confined and limited by the Church, and ask the big questions about what we value, what we strive for, and what he will tell his own children about the nature of science, religion, and life.
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Marshburning
David Arnason
First published in 1980, this classic long poem connecting Arnason’s Icelandic roots to the shore of Lake Winnipeg is being reissued in a magnificent new edition in the Turnstone Selects series, which highlights important works that hold both general and academic interest.
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Mercy
Shirley Camia
Beginning at her mother’s hospital bed, Camia invites readers to keep vigil while she journeys through seasons of bereavement, from the wake to the graveside and into a year of processing, searching, and healing in these elegant poems.
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Monumental Manitoba
Roadside Attractions and More!
Meghan Kjartanson
Kjartanson tells the stories of the often wacky monuments of over 60 sites of interest throughout Manitoba – from the giant Van Gogh sunflowers of Altona to the Happy Rock of Gladstone, from Sara the camel in Glenboro to Bruce the mosasaur in Morden – in this guide to diverse communities.
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Nostalgia for Moving Parts
Diane Tucker
Childhood and adolescent experiences are evoked through the clothing styles and pop music of the ’70s; reflections on adult life and relationships turn into odes to wine and pay phones; the gentle memories of summers at the lake suggest contentment, yet winter meditations draw out a sense of melancholy. These poems examine the life cycles of emotions in ways both humorous and profound.
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Once Removed
Andrew Unger
This gentle satire follows Timothy Heppner, a frustrated ghostwriter struggling to make ends meet in Edenfeld, a small Mennonite community led by a mayor bent on progress (in the form of strip malls). Torn between his loyalty to the Preservation Society and his need to make a living, Timothy finds himself in an awkward position when he is hired to write an updated version of the town’s history book.
