Agnes in the Sky

Betsy Nuse, the former owner of Boudicca Books, is a Vancouver poet,
writer, and editor.

Agnes in the Sky is a fine second book from Manitoba’s Di Brandt—a
book warmed by the fire of passion focused through the clear prism of
mundane experience. Brandt chooses a wide range of subjects: love
between parents or lovers, broader family relationships, childhood
abuse, desire, and the relation of self to cosmos. All these themes are
grounded, some exquisitely in single moments (such as “long
distance,” or the untitled “so now you know about / the cruelty of
flowers”). Visually, the poems are compact bundles: lower-case,
punctuation-less blocks of simple words. At their best, they read with
the pattern and energy of chant or rhetoric (for example, “i’m
finding myself again in the healed heart”). Brandt’s are fine
contemporary poems: skillfully and simply crafted, dynamic, accessible,
and often inspired. Her work deserves a wide audience.