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Poetry Canadian

Rue

by (author) Melissa Bull

Publisher
Anvil Press
Initial publish date
Apr 2015
Category
Canadian
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781772140163
    Publish Date
    Apr 2015
    List Price
    $18

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Description

In her compelling debut poetry collection, shortlisted for the Robert Kroetsch Award, Melissa Bull explores the familial, romantic, and sexual ties that bind lives to cities. Rue takes us through its alleys, parks, and kitchens with a robust lyricism and language that is at once inventive and plainspoken, compassionate and frank.

In English, to rue is to regret; in French, la rue is the street – Rue's poems provide the venue for moments of both recollection and motion. Punctuated withneologisms and the bilingual dialogue of Montreal, the collection explores the author's upbringing in the working-class neighbourhood of St. Henri with her artist mother, follows her travels, friendships, and loves across North America, Europe, and Russia, and recounts her journalist father's struggles with terminal brain cancer.

Inspired by powerful Quebec talents like Nelly Arcan, Marie-Sissy Labrèche, playwright Annick Lefebvre, Canadians poets Elizabeth Bachinsky, Nikki Reimer and David McGimpsey, Melissa Bull brings an unflinching new feminist voice to the Canadian literary scene.

About the author

Melissa Bull is a writer, editor and translator based in Montreal. Her writing has been featured in Event, Matrix, Lemon Hound, Broken Pencil, The Montreal Review of Books, Playboy, and Maisonneuve. She has translated such authors as Nelly Arcan, Kim Thuy, Évelyne de la Chenlière, Raymond Bock, Alexandre Soublière, and Maude Smith Gagnon for various publications. Melissa has a BA in Creative Writing from Concordia University and is currently pursuing her MFA in creative writing at the University of British Columbia. She is the 2013 winner of CBC’s Hyperlocal Award, and her first collection of poetry, Rue, was published in 2015.

Melissa Bull's profile page

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