Desire in Seven Voices

by Lorna Crozier

This daring, funny, sometimes surprising and highly literate collection showcases some of Canada’s finest women Lorna Crozier, Dionne Brand, Bonnie Burnard, Evelyn Lau, Shani Mootoo, Susan Musgrave and Carol Shields.

This gorgeous little book challenges prevailing myths about women and love, women and lust, women and words. "When do you follow your desire?" writers were asked. "When do you censor it? When is it a source of power, and when a source of distress?"


Whether writing about the satisfactions of a long-term relationship or the thrill of the first time with somebody new, about secret crushes or openly declared attraction, about desire that is taboo or desire that is tender abd familiar, the award winning contributors to Desire in Seven Voices are working at the top of their form. Their frank revelations are food for thought and a reader's delight.

Genres: Nonfiction, Poetry, Canada

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Lorna Crozier was born in 1948 in Swift Current, Saskatchewan. As a child growing up in a prairie community where the local heroes were hockey players and curlers, she “never once thought of being a writer.” After university, Lorna went on to teach high school English and work as a guidance counsellor. During these years, Lorna published her first poem in Grain magazine, a publication that turned her life toward writing. Her first collection Inside in the Sky was published in 1976. Since then, she has authored 14 books of poetry, including The Garden Going on Without Us, Angels of Flesh, Angels of Silence, Inventing the Hawk, winner of the 1992 Governor-General’s Award, Everything Arrives at the Light, Apocrypha of Light, What the Living Won’t Let Go, and most recently Whetstone. Whether Lorna is writing about angels, aging, or Louis Armstrong’s trout sandwich, she continues to engage readers and writers across Canada and the world with her grace, wisdom and wit. She is, as Margaret Laurence wrote, “a poet to be grateful for.”

Since the beginning of her writing career, Lorna has been known for her inspired teaching and mentoring of other poets. In 1980 Lorna was the writer-in-residence at the Cypress Hills Community College in Swift Current; in 1983, at the Regina Public Library; and in 1989 at the University of Toronto. She has held short-term residencies at the Universities of Toronto and Lethbridge and at Douglas College. Presently she lives near Victoria, where she teaches and serves as Chair in the Writing Department at the University.

Beyond making poems, Lorna has also edited two non-fiction collections – Desire in Seven Voices and Addiction: Notes from the Belly of the Beast. Together with her husband and fellow poet Patrick Lane, she edited the 1994 landmark collection Breathing Fire: Canada’s New Poets; in 2004, they co-edited Breathing Fire 2, once again introducing over thirty new writers to the Canadian literary world.

Her poems continue to be widely anthologized, appearing in 15 Canadian Poets X 3, 20th Century Poetry and Poetics, Poetry International and most recently in Open Field: An Anthology of Contemporary Canadian Poets, a collection designed for American readers.

Her reputation as a generous and inspiring artist extends from her passion for the craft of poetry to her teaching and through to her involvement in various social causes. In addition to leading poetry workshops across the globe, Lorna has given benefit readings for numerous organizations such as the SPCA, the BC Land Conservancy, the Victoria READ Society, and PEERS, a group committed to helping prostitutes get off the street. She has been a frequent guest on CBC radio where she once worked as a reviewer and arts show host. Wherever she reads she raises the profile and reputation of poetry.

Reviews

[Leah Horlick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Worth it for Susan Musgrave, Shani Mootoo, Lorna Crozier, and Dionne Brand, as always.

[2TReads · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love how each woman engages with the subject, taking apart their own approaches to desire and the ways in which it manifested, crested, and affected, deepened, or doomed their relationships.

The ways in which Desire arises and is acknowledged in each of us is unique and deserves to be discussed, shared, and accepted as being immutable parts of ourselves and how we express this inherent response; whether we align with the chemical, physical, or spiritual.

Each woman approaches her relationship with desire with honesty, detailing their discovery, ownership, dissection, and acceptance. The role of upbringing, exposure, and communication is also touched on, as it relates to desire and its place in our homes and societies.

Considering what and how desire showed up in their lives is also explored as each woman tries to understand the fount from which desire springs and what that means and the ways in which they now will have to change or be changed; how will this newly awakened spark grow with them and what will it mean not only for their relationships, but also their sexual identities?

These essays are all about the ways in which desire comes to us or the ways in which we stumble into or upon desire; how desire is commodified, distilled, restilled, styled and used.

[Bill Brydon · Rating 5 out of 5]

.Musgravian Any man was the right man as long as he could jump-start my junkie libido.