Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway

by Alexandra Oliver

A CANADIAN POETRY BOOK OF THE YEAR, THE NATIONAL POST

“Alexandra Oliver has many arrows in her quiver—all of them sharpened to a fine point. This is an excellent and entertaining collection.”—TIMOTHY STEELE

In Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway, Alexandra Oliver zooms in on the inertias, anxieties, comedies, cruelties, and epiphanies of domestic life:

They all had names like Jennifer or Lynne
or Katherine; they all had bone-blonde hair,
that wet, flat cut with bangs. They pulled your chair
from underneath you, shoved their small fists in
your face. Too soon, you knew it would begin,
those minkish teeth like shrapnel in the air,
the Bacchic taunts, the Herculean dare,
their soccer cleats against your porcine shin,
that laugh, which sounded like a hundred birds
escaping from a gunshot through the reeds—
and now you have to face it all again:
the joyful freckled faces lost for words
in supermarkets, as those red hands squeeze
your own. It’s been so long! They say. Amen.

Oliver’s poems, which she describes as “text-based home movies,” unveil a cinematic vision of suburbia at once comical and poignant: framed to renew our curiosity in the mundane and pressing rhyme and metre to their utmost, Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway is a five-star performance from Canada’s new formalist sensation.

“Alexandra Oliver is in full command of a saber wit and impeccable ear. Lucky the reader along for the ride.”—JEANNE MARIE BEAUMONT

“Brilliantly contemporary poems in traditional forms, the work of a stunning new voice.”—CHARLES MARTIN

Alexandra Oliver was born in Vancouver, Canada and divides her time between Toronto and Glasgow, Scotland.  Her most recent book is Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway (Biblioasis). She currently teaches in the Stonecoast MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine.

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Steven Buechler · Rating 5 out of 5]

We stumble through our daily lives but do we give it a serious thought? Is what we go through every day really that important or is it even dangerous? That is the thoughts Alexandra Oliver makes us consider as one reads her collection of poetry called Meeting Tormentors in Safeway.

http://wp.me/p46Ewj-J4

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've fallen in love with this author's poetry. I havent read much poetry since high-school, but this have made me love the spoken word. Read them out loud! I especially loved 'Curriculum Vitae', 'Doug Hill', and 'The Classics Lesson'

[Noora · Rating 3 out of 5]

"If it gave me my life, I would make others bleed,
I would let myself down and pay later."

3.75/5
Significantly better than her previous collection, and with a few amazing poems that I will keep for years.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely, varied, and surprising.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a varied collection for me: some of these poems I liked, namely “Voted Best Place to Live,” but others I did not.

On the whole I am not a fan of rhyming— I find it quite irritating— so many of these poems failed to make the mark with me.

2.5 stars.

[Dan Todd · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely love this poet and love all her works. She is the greatest living Canadian poet. Her interest in marginal extra-cultural poetic traditions such as those of South Slavic authors are additionally enriching.