In her exceptional poetic debut, Fawn Parker meditates on grief, illness, and the open-handed relationship between material objects and memory. Written after her mother was diagnosed with cancer, Soft Inheritance follows the poet's rapidly evolving reality where “kindness is a scar,“ though ”not all scar-makers are kind. ,”" Both a treatise on the sick body and the state of "“after”—post-caretaking, post-breakup, post-moving, and post-death—these poems question what is inherited, and ask what can safely be left behind. A diamond ring? A cancerous gene? Soft Inheritance is a finely crafted love letter to the people and places that imprint on a life.
Fawn Parker is a Giller-nominated author of five books including What We Both Know (M&S 2022) and Hi, it's me (M&S 2024). Work in Maisonneuve, The Walrus, and Literary Review of Canada. Fawn is represented by CookeMcDermid Agency and is a SSHRC-funded PhD student in Creative Writing at the University of New Brunswick.
I had not read any poetry for many years, except a few old favourites. Unfortunately, I did not really find this book very engaging. It did not touch me emotionally. A pity.