Combustion

by Lorri Neilsen Glenn

Lorri Neilsen Glenn's poems welcome the reader into a place where the strange is made familiar and the familiar reveals its own magic. Here the combustible materials of childhood and old age are always potentially present, and the attention paid them multi-dimensional. Her poems engage their subjects with wits and senses on full alert, whether the occasion is an encounter with the full moon during a lonely drive across the prairies, a raucous community dance at the oldest dance hall in the Maritimes, or the opening of the door into "the small town inside". Reaching from nature to human nature, often drawn by the long line and the hum of loss, Neilsen Glenn explores a full range of poetic possibilities.

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Born and raised in Winnipeg, MB, Lorri Neilsen Glenn has lived in Halifax, NS since 1983. In addition to her work as a poet, Glenn is also an ethnographer and essayist. Glenn has studied at the Universities of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Harvard.

Her first collection of poetry, all the perfect disguises (Broken Jaw Press), was published in 2003. 2007 saw the publication of both a chapbook, Saved String (Rubicon Press), and a second collection, Combustion (Brick Books). In 2010, Glenn published her third full collection, Lost Gospels, also through Brick Books. In 2011, Hagios Press published Threading the Light: Explorations in Loss and Poetry. Most recently, Glenn was the editor for Untyping the Apron: Daughters Remember Mothers of the 1950s (2013, Guernica).

Glenn has won or been shortlisted for numerous awards for her poetry throughout her career, including the National Magazine Awards, Short Grain Contest, CBC Literary Awards, and the Bliss Carman Poetry Awards. She has also received recognition for her scholarship, having won awards in Grain, Event Magazine, and Prairie Fire.

From 2005-2009, Glenn served as poet laureate for the Regional Municipality of Halifax. She currently teaches at Mount Saint Vincent University.

Reviews

[Andrew Sare · Rating 3 out of 5]

We say that art is a universal language, but regional poetry is a conversation among a pretty small community in one language. It's often pretty personal, maybe the poet is just taking to themselves, in which case it can closely reflect oddities of our own thought processes. But, in so much as there are common forms of poetry across languages, this may an indication of our abilities to take similar sorts of risks and leaps across cultures.

Lorri Neilson Glenn's Combustion collection is deeply personal but it also conveys some stark concepts of loss and aging that maybe make this subtle book scarier the older you are. There were some moments of joy, but most of them were nostalgic. I found it very sobering overall.

[Alex Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

for being a poetry book I knew nothing about that I found in a used book store on a visit to Ontario last summer, I found exactly what I was looking for in poetry. which is almost kind of the whole point Glenn’s poems. poignant in their presence and imagery, her ability to splice a simple thing into its bones and bring you there with her was beautiful.

I only give it four stars because some poems were a little convoluted, which can be a draw to poetry for some, but not always for me. i would recommend this to any poetry lover.

[Carla Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could clearly sense one poem as a memory from the prairies, and the next page from Labrador. The voice of the unsettled child, growing with that knowledge gives striking observations.

[Aingeal Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read poetry to broaden my reading horizons. I prefer novels. But sometimes a poet or a poem will hit me where I live. "Hold" in this collection did just that.