Frogs in the Rain Barrel
- Publisher
- Nightwood Editions
- Initial publish date
- Jan 1995
- Category
- Canadian, General
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780889711600
- Publish Date
- Jan 1995
- List Price
- $16.95
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Description
In the title poem of this extraordinary first book, Sally Ito remembers her childhood in Alberta, when she set frogs in the rain barrel and watched them swim like stars in a "pool of still and nether depths/ whose mirrored surface was all."
Those imagined depths become a powerful metaphor in these poems, which reflect Ito's experiences as a young Japanese Canadian living and writing in Alberta, the Northwest Territories, the West Coast and Japan. Hers is a distinct poetic voice, equally at ease with such diverse images as an aged Chinese man on the train, the Inuit goddess of the sea and the first crocus of spring. Frogs in the Rain Barrel was runner-up for the Milton Acorn People's Poetry Award in 1996.
About the author
Sally Ito was born in Taber, Alberta and grew up in Edmonton and the Northwest Territories. She studied at the University of British Columbia and the University of Alberta, and travelled on scholarship to Japan, where she translated Japanese poetry. Her first book of poems, Frogs in the Rain Barrel (Nightwood, 1995) was runner-up for the Milton Acorn People's Poetry Award. Her second book, Floating Shore (Mercury Press), won the Writers Guild of Alberta Book Award for short fiction, and was shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed Literary Prize and the City of Edmonton Book Prize. Her work has appeared in numerous periodicals such as Grain, Matrix and the Capilano Review and in the anthologies Breathing Fire: Canada's New Poets and Poets 88. Ito lives in Edmonton with her husband and son.
Awards
- Runner-up, Milton Acorn People's Poetry Award
Excerpt: Frogs in the Rain Barrel (by (author) Sally Ito)
They are in a room,
together. Their breathing, a rhythm of ages
rises and falls
in the small tempest of sleep.
One is a child, a girl.
Her breath, quick and light
falls as a petal of air
upon a small, rounded face
dreaming of the night's darkness
passing in grace of He
who answers prayers forever.
One is a woman breathing
taut and baited as one who is on the brink
of love's summation; passion
planted in the body,
now growing swollen and wanton
in the night's potted darkness, nurtured
on dreams of love lasting forever.
And she that is old, sleeps
still, body pulsing to the heart's sound
in the night's boding darkness
where dreams now
lie reverent to the mortal sound
that is not forever. Now
breath for breath's sake.
