The Drunken, Lovely Bird

Sue Sinclair writes in a lyrical tradition that subverts the stereotype of "Canadian women's" poetry while still playing with some, if not all, of the same poetic vocabulary. The Drunken Lovely Bird, her accomplished third book of poetry, confirms her reputation as one of Canada's most original young poets. A keen observer of the material world, from the Newfoundland coast to the streets of Toronto, she has a rare gift for epiphany, for exposing the numinous in the commonplace. Her poems speak from that precise place where our perception of the world and our capacity for language meet and embrace, where our sense of experience goes to get sharpened and refreshed. That experience might involve the inner lives of clouds, the flourishing and passing of a tulip, the evocative scent of wolf willow, or the intricate arts of Bach and Virginia Woolf. Sinclair's poems are deft, musical, and quick in the moment, alive to the sensuous surface and the meditative depth, their antennae fully extended. They focus brilliantly on lively physical details, yet they resonate with the subtle emotions that whisper at the edges of the everyday world. Meditative and beautifully crafted, Sinclair's poems are simultaneously surprising and inevitable, inviting readers to gaze more deeply into their surroundings and to rejoice in both the light and the dark.