Pouring Small Fire (Junction Books)

Pouring Small Fire is a debut poetry collection that intricately regenerates a full life experience spanning from the baseball diamonds, pond-mist and summer grass of Upstate New York to hot and sour soup and middle-aged love on Toronto's Spadina Street. Understandably, throughout this journey much is tragically and regretfully left behind, but Manchester's poems form a powerful, life-affirming argument convincing us that it's what is retained -- not only from the past but at this very moment -- that is enduringly important. Manchester possesses the uncanny ability to transport her readers to any specific time and place with her rich and precise memory and her refined command of the language. Hear the banter of the crowd, smell the hot-dog mustard, feel the mud in your fingernails, and "feel feather stroke feather, watch beak peck beak/ to know the instant when image is not image but real." A genuine poet of the senses, Manchester explores the heartache of personal loss as well as the small joys found throughout life--from childhood to marriage.