From award-winning poet Catherine Owen, a collection of poems about one woman's journey from BC to a new life in Alberta, where she buys an old house and creates a new meaning of home.
In search of stability and rootedness, in 2018 Catherine Owen moved from coastal Vancouver to prairie Edmonton. There, she purchased a house built more than one hundred years earlier: a home named Delilah.
Beginning from a space of grief that led to Owen's relocation, the poems in this collection inhabit the home, its present and its past. These poems share the stories of decades of renovations, the full lives of Delilah's previous inhabitants, and Owen's triumphs and failures in the ever-evolving garden. The poems ultimately whirl out in the concentric distances of the local neighbourhood and beyond -- though one house can make a home, home encompasses so much more than one house.
In this exceptional and lyrical collection, Catherine Owen interrogates her need for economic itinerancy, traces the passage of time and the later phases of grief, and deepens her understanding of rootedness, both in place and in poetic forms.
Authors
- Pages
- 136
- Published in
- Calgary, CA
- Rights
- Catherine Owen
Table of Contents
- Cover 1
- Back Cover 2
- Half Title 3
- Title 5
- Copyright 6
- Epigraph 7
- Dedication 9
- Part I: Prologues 11
- Exodus: a directive 13
- Getting There 14
- The Voice 16
- Returning to Edmonton, nine years after 17
- Identity 18
- Two Homes: a corona 19
- Dedication for a Home 25
- Part II: The House 27
- Delilah 29
- Salt Box Special 30
- History 31
- Forms of Knowledge: The Census 32
- The Guest Who Didn't Leave 33
- Uncoveries: haibuns on renovating a garage 34
- The Pipe 37
- The house becomes 38
- 1905/2020: linked haikus 39
- 1905: Four Headlines Each Month on Page One of the Edmonton Journal as Tiny Love Letters 40
- The Roof 44
- Six Words 45
- The Book Box: 12 months in 13 parts 46
- The Rescue 52
- Conversation with the City Archivist regarding evidence of my house in 1905 53
- City Archives: Trying to Find the Builder 54
- Constraints & Melancholia, 2020 55
- The Christmas Cactus 56
- Will your cats be in this book? 57
- The Built-in Bookcase 58
- The Home Performance Series: a recipe 59
- Part III: The Garden 61
- In My Back Garden in September 63
- September 64
- Forms of Knowledge: Winter 65
- Seasonal Pantoum, Slightly Tinged 66
- The Adopted Garden: Late May 68
- Sonnet on My End-of-the-Season Garden 69
- Fall Equinox 70
- Premonitions in March 71
- Pantoum of the Wettest July 72
- Mistakes already made in the garden by May 5th 73
- May Snow, redux 74
- Legacy 75
- An Abecedarian for the Garden 76
- Tally in June 77
- Tally in July 78
- Tally in August 79
- Tally in September 80
- Tally in October 81
- Crabapples 82
- Dragonflies 83
- Reciprocity 84
- Layers 85
- Four Words 86
- The Third Garden 87
- Eternal Recurrence 88
- The Human Nest 89
- Sunflower, August 91
- The Rasp 92
- Sonnet on November 14th 93
- After a Form by Galway Kinnell that also uses the word Winter in the 4th Stanza 94
- The Garden Diary 95
- The Fourth-Year Garden, 2022 96
- Green Tomatoes 96
- Lullaby 98
- Part IV: The Neighbourhood 99
- Postcards from the Archives, 1905 101
- Mowing the Ghost House 106
- To the Thief who Reads Poetry 107
- Two Incidents in Pandemic Times 108
- Five Businesses between 118th Ave and Little Italy 110
- Kingsway Mall, Alberta Avenue, Winter 2023 112
- Mona's Pub, 118th Avenue 113
- New Year's Eve Feast at the Hotel Macdonald, 2018: a sestina for Michael 114
- Classic Rock Fest, Edmonton Racetrack, with Prism, Glass Tiger and Tom Cochrane 116
- Together Again Festival at the Edmonton Racetrack with Danko Jones, I Mother Earth and Our Lady Peace 116
- A Revolving Sestina on The Stadium Tour, 2022, Commonwealth Stadium, Edmonton 117
- Rock the District with Carole Pope, Helix, Harlequin and Loverboy, June 2023 120
- Ed: a sonnet 121
- Cook County Saloon, October 2020 122
- Pandemic Road Trips, 2020 122
- Elk Island, July 2020 127
- Kelley’s Bathtub, Jarvis Lake, Hinton, AB 128
- The Taxidermist’s B & B, Hinton, AB 129
- Lines at Drumheller, Oct 31, 2021 130
- Coda: The Fine Print 131
- Coda: Home, 2018–2023 132
- Acknowledgements 135
- Other Books by Catherine Owen 137
- Biography: Catherine Owen 138
