Recommended Age, Grade, and Reading Levels
- Age: 14
- Grade: 9
Description
Marita Dachsel's debut collection is a visceral exploration of the moments of life that stand out in the pages of a family album and the intervals of memory. She playfully and poignantly documents first crushes, first times, weddings and trips across town, across water, and across continents. Dachsel perceptively sprinkles these moments with the details photographs don't reveal, as in "Dispatches from an Impending Marriage": 'Don't talk to me about photographers./ Nothing will capture this. A printed paper/ will only mock - / a gaudy misrepresentation/ a plastic jesus on the mantle - / two dimensions of fabric, teeth and skin.'
About the author
Marita Dachsel is the author of Glossolalia, Eliza Roxcy Snow, and All Things Said & Done. Her poetry has been shortlisted for the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry and the ReLit Prize and has appeared in many literary journals and anthologies, including Best Canadian Poetry in English, 2011. Her play Initiation Trilogy was nominated for the Jessie Richardson Award for Outstanding New Script. She is the 2013/2014 Artist-in-Residence at UVic's Centre for Studies in Religion and Society. After many years in Vancouver and Edmonton, she and her family now live in Victoria.
Awards
- Short-listed, ReLit Award
Librarian Reviews
All Things Said & Done
In her first poetry collection, Marita Dachsel explores and celebrates various aspects of life. The book is divided into three sections: small town breeding, all things said and done and uncharted territory. Dachsel probes and investigates the problems and implications of life’s ups and downs, through glimpses of first crushes, first times, weddings and marriages of women to men like their fathers. New horizons, such as trips and travel, are also scrutinized along with growing up and growing old. Daschel’s poems are bitingly explicit and thought provoking.Caution: Some coarse language.
Source: The Association of Book Publishers of BC. BC Books for BC Schools. 2007-2008.
