HARROWINGS

by Cecily Nicholson

HARROWINGS takes place mainly in the rural and reconnects with a history of Black intellectual and artistic history in relation to agriculture. The poems include pulses of memoir from the poet’s childhood growing up in the country on a farm. These experiences connect to her volunteer work during the recent pandemic, on a local “prison farm” – an agricultural enterprise whose leadership includes people who were formerly incarcerated. Considering movements organizing for food security, and related, resurgent practices, HARROWINGS addresses the work of cultivation. Underlying references include almanacs and Anglo idioms, drawing upon tabular information, weather, and the workings of the sun, moon, and points of stars as may be practical in relation to a localized, growing year. The poems refuse the romance of husbandry, cultivation, and predictive customs. Understanding “the farm” as a tract of colonial advance – tropes of charming and white, tradition and supremacy, are confronted in a study of biome, water, soil, and seed. With love, despite episodic and chronic illness, duress, and dissociative relationships to time – the poetry advances by way of practical tasks such as watering, weeding, and sowing toward abolitionist futures.

Genres: Poetry

112 pages, Paperback

First published June 7, 2022

Reviews

[Jade Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cecily Nicholson's books are always worth reading, and this is no exception.

[Penn Kemp · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many harrowing and fertile ways of growing a poet: “a surface-deep practice of harrowing matters”.

Cecily Nicholson quotes Robert Kroetsch from Seed Catalogue: “But how do you grow a poet?”

[atito · Rating 4 out of 5]

i have missed reading poetry and hearing cecily nicholson read was an absolute treat this semester