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    Buoyancy Control
    Buoyancy Control
    Buoyancy Control
    Ebook68 pages26 minutes

    Buoyancy Control

    By Adrienne Gruber

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    About this ebook

    Buoyancy Control, the latest collection of poems from Vancouverite Adrienne Gruber, explores themes of sexuality, sexual identity, and queerness, while confronting the feelings of loss and longing found in relationships, and the chance glimpse into a new life, while still recovering from a painfully failed connection.

    Metaphors of oceans, lakes, and other bodies of water, as well as the creatures that inhabit those spaces, swim and swirl their way through Gruber's languid poems, which are divided into two evocative sections. Though distinguished by their own prologue poems, both sections reveal details of the narrator's examination of life, but from two different perspectives: Section 1, Terra Firma, is an exploration of place, of what we consider solid and secure, and how solidity can betray us. In contrast, Section 2, A mari usque ad maria, brings the reader into themes of water and the fluidity of identity, particularly sexual identity and queerness.

    This is an honest, at times humorous, and revealing look inside the mind and body of a woman manoeuvring through experiences of longing, loss, and the fluidity of sexual identity, only to come out on the other side a more forgiving being from the journey.

    Fans of Karen Solie's powerfully feminist and unapologetic poetic voice, as well as the playful sarcasm and grit of Alison Calder's Wolf Tree, will glory in Gruber's fascinating culmination of land and sea, mind and body, in Buoyancy Control.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookThug
    Release dateApr 5, 2016
    ISBN9781771662239
    Buoyancy Control
    Author

    Adrienne Gruber

    Adrienne Gruber is the author of three books of poetry, Q & A (Book*hug), Buoyancy Control (BookThug) and This is the Nightmare (Thistledown Press), and five chapbooks. She won The Antigonish Review's Great Blue Heron poetry contest in 2015, SubTerrain's Lush Triumphant poetry contest in 2017 and has been short-listed for the CBC Literary Awards, ARC?s Poem of the Year contest, Descant's Winston Collins Best Canadian Poem contest and Matrix Magazine's Lit POP poetry contest. In 2012, her chapbook, Mimic was awarded the bp Nichol Chapbook Award. Originally from Saskatoon, Adrienne lives in Vancouver with her partner and two daughters.

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      Book preview

      Buoyancy Control - Adrienne Gruber

      Buoyancy Control

      Adrienne Gruber

      BookThug 2016

      FIRST EDITION

      copyright © 2016 by Adrienne Gruber

      ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

      No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

      The production of this book was made possible through the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. BookThug also acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Book Fund.

      LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

      Gruber, Adrienne, 1980–, author

            Buoyancy control / Adrienne Gruber. —First edition.

      Poems.

      Issued in print and electronic formats.

      ISBN 978-1-77166-222-2 (PAPERBACK)

      ISBN 978-1-77166-223-9 (HTML)

      ISBN 978-1-77166-224-6 (PDF)

      ISBN 978-1-77166-225-3 (MOBI)

            I. TITLE.

      PS8613.R79B86 2016       C811’.6      C2016-900582-8

      C2016-900583-6

      For Edith and Salvador, pa que sepas.

      CONTENTS

      Terra Firma

      A mari usque ad maria

      Prologue

      Blend of heat and colour. Bougainvillea bloom in January, cacti buds are sunsets. Scrub dishes, stoke the fire, bring in wood, play a game of dominoes, help Salvador wash his car. Walk in the groves with the dogs, throw them pieces of orange. Occupy restless hands. Salvador makes perfume. Fingers measure and pour the alcohol. The bottles smell like candy. Twice a week the shrill siren of a tortilla truck passes through El Llano. Dogs have flies around their mouths. Women in television commercials are whiter than you are. Learn to say café con leche; this is what a woman’s skin looks like. Think of a man once loved, planned a life with. Bike down a gravel switchback, launch head first over the handlebars. The bike on top, the sun, a frying pan branded to back. On Saturdays, the market in Montemorelos. Boiled corn mixed with salsa and crema fresca. Kids sell toy cars and Spiderman dolls, cowboy belt buckles. Silver purses and pink lipsticks. A scruffy one-eared dog trots by, nipples dragging like udders. Whoever

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