The Winnipeg Free Press loves Susan Holbrook
Susan Holbrook is so hilarious! In Joy Is So Exhausting (Coach House, 85 pages, $17), Holbrook is so dedicated to playfulness we can almost believe these poems don't take themselves too seriously. Which is to say this is a seriously stellar collection.
Holbrook's writing is powered by a joy for language, life, laughter. This Windsor poet is wired to the poetic texts embedded in her everyday encounters: home inspection reports, guides to writing English essays, and petsmart.com are translated into poem-guides, joyful, comedic, moody messages to lighten the wary.
In Nursery, Holbrook transcends the left-right breastfeeding experience from monotony: "Left: Trace pictograph of an elk in the fine veins on your temple. ... Right: Your smells make us embarrassed and sorry for the people around us until we hear the group ahead is visiting Ontario to hunt."
And from Good Egg Bad Seed, Holbrook's personality poem-test: "You are a binary thinker or you are and you aren't."
