Proof explores the worlds of entomology, memory and mathematics. What can be proven with empirical evidence and what demands reason. The poems examine the means of observation from the entomologist to the grief stricken mathematician. From break-ups to Dung Beetles, these poems move from microscope to recollection and from the abstract math proof to the visceral sting of the wasp's barbed quill.

Larissa Andrusyshyn’s poetry has appeared in Headlight, Soliloquies, Versal and in the anthologies Running With Scissors (Cumulus Press) and The Future Hygyenic (Pistol Press 2009). Her work has also been shortlisted for the Arc Magazine poem of the Year in 2009. She presently co-ordinates writing workshops for at-risk youth and works at a veterinary hospital. A multi-celled, carbon-based life form, she lives and writes in Montreal.

Larissa Andrusyshyn's profile page

'Andrusyshyns audacity in using the Ew! factor in a set of poems about insects is impressive. Literature has never included poems about Sex Lives of Leopard Slugs or The Diving Bell Spider. John Donne, who brought scientific imagery into his poetry, would be impressed. One of her best poems, The Genus Nabokovia, uses facts about the butterfly discovered by and named for Vladimir Nabokov as a means of describing his work and his relationship with his muse/wife, Vera. Its a shame he isnt alive to read it, especially the daring line about the butterfly having photoreceptors in its appendage / it sees with its genitalia. The fondness for declarative sentences in this book, combined with the short lines, gives it a brisk, tonic quality. The titlepoem lists various meanings of proof, though she does not include the term as used in the field of numismatics to denote coins of exceptional quality struck for collectors. Her work is a proof copy in this sense: polished to a shine.' -- Bert Almon, MRB, Spring 2015