Harbour

by Miranda Pearson

Harbour looks at ways humans are driven to construct territory in whatever space is available, however borrowed or makeshift. In the first section, “Asylum,” Miranda Pearson turns to her experience of working in psychiatry. We hear the voices of both caregivers and patients, and flit back and forth between these two roles, contrasting and unraveling their meaning. Moving from hospitals to museums, the poems explore the tensions between antiquity and modernity, and how we collect and display artifacts, preserving life in frozen morgue-like containment. Ideas on hoarding are touched upon, how even assembling a collection of poetry is a type of acquisition — of imagery, words, ideas, and other texts. Harbour — the noun and the verb are interchangeable — illuminates the human drive to nest, gathering together ideas on how we seek refuge, a sanctuary, a keep.

Genres: Poetry

144 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 2009