Synaptic - (Oskana Poetry & Poetics) by Alison Calder (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

An award-winning poet attempts to map the brain's neural connections, raising fundamental questions about identity and interiority.

This intricate, yearning work from award-winning poet Alison Calder asks us to think about the way we perceive and the ways in which we seek to know ourselves and others.

In Synaptic, each section explores key themes in science, neurology, and perception. The first, Connectomics, riffs on scientific language to work with and against that language's intentions. Attempting to map the brain's neural connections, it raises fundamental questions about interiority and the self. The lyric considerations in these poems are juxtaposed against the scientific-like footnotes which, in turn, invoke questions undermining authority and power. The second section, Other Disasters, explores ways of seeing or and being seen, from considerations of folklore to modern art to daily life.

The speakers in these poems are searching for knowledge. Everyone is looking for a miracle.

Review Quotes

"Alison Calder's poems are wonderfully imaginative and wholly original. Hers is a fascinating, accomplished, inspired and inspiring new voice in Canadian poetry."--Helen Humphreys, author of Rabbit Foot Bill

"I'm in love with Alison Calder's poems."--Jeanette Lynes

"The wonderfully articulated, poised, often epigrammatic poems, picking up glints from the cutting edge of neuroscience, are so beguiling. The author asks us to look at our brains and implicitly ourselves and our lives, our forgotten and remembered tasks, through the lens of bioscience refracted in turn through the mind of the poet. They are playful, witty, wry and often poignant."--Raymond Tallis

About the Author

Award-winning poet Alison Calder grew up in Saskatoon. She is the author of Wolf Tree and In the Tiger Park, and she lives in Winnipeg where she teaches Canadian literature and creative writing at the University of Manitoba.