Weaving together a modern retelling of Roman Empress Agrippina the Elder, a künstlerroman-inspired exploration of French sculptor Niki de Saint Phalle, and the contemporary portrait of an unhappily married mother, Bowman’s My Eyes Are Fuses is a bold exploration of tensions between freedom of art and the constraints of gender. Spanning centuries, these poems offer enchantments and antidotes, extract the poison from moments of pain, distil it down to a sweet elixir. Here, women are animals, witches, artists, rebels, imagined beyond their accomplishments, drawn together through time. With careful form, Bowman conjures a new chronicle for these women as time travellers, shapeshifters, goddesses akin to the three Fates, powerful beyond what their moments in time allowed of them.

Norah Bowman lives on Unceded Syilx Okanagan territory, home to ponderosa pines and bunchgrass. Norah is a poet, artist, and feminist writer whose interests include art, feminist movements around the world, equity for all, and protection of the earth. She is the author of Amplify! A Graphic Novel of Feminist Resistance (University of Toronto Press, 2019) and Breath, Like Water: An Anticolonial Romance (Caitlin Press, 2021).

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