Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Comma
    Unavailable
    Comma
    Unavailable
    Comma
    Ebook148 pages39 minutes

    Comma

    By Jennifer Still

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    It was a long silence that brought me to the erasure poem. Not mine, but my brother's, during his many months in a coma. I came across a notebook of his—a pocketsized, handwritten field guide of prairie grasses. I read it for companionship, signs of consciousness, attention. I read it for the rhythms of his still and distant hand…. I was reading a taxonomy of grief: silique drifted into soliloquy.>

    Between 2008 and 2014, while her brother was in a lengthy coma, award-winning poet Jennifer Still engaged in a private collaboration with the art and wonder that was his handwritten field guide of prairie grasses. The result: the stunning works of poetry and imagery encapsulated in Comma.

    Still was moved by an overarching impulse of grief to create these poems. In the brittle lexicon of botany, and in the hum of the machines keeping her brother alive, she developed a hands-on method of composition that plays with the possibilities of what can be 'read' on a page. Comma enacts a state of transformation and flux, all in an effort to portray the embodiment of grief and regeneration that can be achieved in the physical breakdown and reassembly of lyric poetic forms.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookhug Press
    Release dateMay 1, 2017
    ISBN9781771663120
    Unavailable
    Comma
    Author

    Jennifer Still

    Jennifer Still's first collection of poems, Saltations (Thistledown Press, 2005) was nominated for three Saskatchewan Book Awards. Poems from Girlwood were finalists in the 2008 CBC Literary Awards. After living her adult years until just recently in Saskatchewan, Jennifer now lives in Winnipeg with her husband and two children.

    Read more from Jennifer Still

    Related to Comma

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Spell

      Apr 25, 2018

      Spell
      4 min read

    • Article

      Types of Enclosures

      Sep 2, 2022

      Types of Enclosures
      4 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Jan 1, 2024

      “the possibility of joy in the face of death” —Georges Bataille Couldn’t get “I” nor “we” to settle down, stay unresolved in time in crisp white burial shirts could do bouts of theatrical weeping weary though exacting avant garde gestures of the carp

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Alchemy of November

      Nov 15, 2017

      The Alchemy of November
      5 min read

    • Article

      Botanical Drawing

      May 17, 2018

      Contributed by Helene Wild  bins Down , there is a clump corner of Italian our Arum (Arum , italicum). Early one morning, after heavy overnight rain, I spied the dramatic orange fruits and the snails that had emerged from hiding to feast on their bou

      4 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      May 1, 2022

      —after Gerrit van Honthorst’s “Samson and Delilah,” c. 1621 They’ve made a monster of me, marring my namefor eternity. I’m not Delilah,but Laila. I loved him. Each night, in bed, after our bodies became one body, he would succumb to sleep, resting hi

      3 min read

    • Article

      In Bloom

      Mar 1, 2019

      To attract congruence wavelength to sine reachingvirtue scented rosy blushing to blooma metaphor more than metaphorpurple to red adaptableleaf or blossomstem or spindlecotton floss guided through eyepressed through fabric stretched onto frameeach sti

      2 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Nov 1, 2021

      That the semi-circular canal is part of my ear,not a style of Venetian waterway arch,I learned mid-air on a Huffy.That bicycles left long out in the rain split.That prepositions are tricky.That I was made part industrious,part lazy-assed. That descri

      3 min read

    • Article

      Editor’s Letter

      Nov 24, 2021

      WHAT’S OUR CLASSIEST native finch? Six people might well give six different answers. Numerous fanciers have a special yen for the redpoll, for its characterfulness, ease of breeding and beautiful colour mutations. Greenfinch loyalists won’t hear a pe

      1 min read

    • Article

      Five Kinds of Bass Grabs

      Apr 2, 2024

      Five Kinds of Bass Grabs
      2 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Jan 1, 2020

      How slow is all of this dying? Across the county linea fossil in the making, off-road exhaling last lightin nightmud. A small cat in a steel trap. Pendulous sparrows preen. Holding on for the last bluedark nightwe ate fruited scabs off each other’s m

      4 min read

    • Article

      Botanical Drawing

      Jan 23, 2020

      Down in the far corner of our back garden, next to the compost bins, there is a clump of Italian Arum (Arum italicum). Early one morning, after heavy overnight rain, I spied the dramatic orange fruits and the snails that had emerged from hiding to fe

      4 min read

    • Article

      A Book of Hours

      Nov 25, 2022

      A Book of Hours
      12 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Mar 1, 2019

      When I got upa dead beetle where my back had beennot a tick, should I be gladmy blood untouchedthe body’s sliding boardI don’t understandmy tongue feeling large for my moutha loose bone floating in the footreceiving impactthis being subtle and not so

      2 min read

    • Article

      DOVES Symbols Of Peace

      Dec 2, 2021

      DOVES Symbols Of Peace
      6 min read

    • Article

      Nine Poems

      Jul 1, 2018

      I Blazes travel the state roads. Entire fields ingrained in us—firesa house, a forest, essential in land and soil—set a purpose. II At growing season, leave dead matter aboveground. Future burners—side ditches. Dead matter, new plants—shells that nee

      3 min read

    • Article

      Give A Little Whistle

      Jun 24, 2020

      Give A Little Whistle
      4 min read

    • Article

      We love August

      Jul 22, 2021

      We love August
      2 min read

    • Article

      We love April

      Mar 16, 2023

      We love April
      2 min read

    • Article

      Town & Country Notebook

      Dec 16, 2020

      1) From which language does the word ‘scampi' come? 2) The sola plant, Aeschynomene aspera, is used to make what sort of headwear? 3) Pernio or perniosis, a medical condition caused by exposure to cold, is more commonly known as what? 4) What are

      2 min read

    • Article

      LETTER FROM Namaqua National Park

      Mar 24, 2023

      What do you do all day? people ask when they hear we're off for a week of wild camping on the West Coast. I'm not talking about the “tame” West Coast around Langebaan, Velddrif and Dwarskersbos, but further north in Namaqualand between the Groen and

      3 min read

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Mar 4, 2024

      To Err Is Human; to Forgive, Supine —S. J. Perelman, Baby, It’s Cold Inside, 1970 You must know the bees have come early this year too: I see them visit aster, sweet Williams, bleeding hearts, and azalea blossoms hardy enough to not have crisped with

      3 min read

    • Article

      Plastic Bag

      May 1, 2022

      Waving from a tree limbone handle free breezefilling the sacksail w/o craft full-bodiedfailure discardedyour form is emptiness emptinessvalue thank you thank you thank youthank you cascadingdurable membraneagain not full againtrash carrying trashneve

      2 min read

    • Article

      Storytime Playbox

      Sep 4, 2019

      Storytime Playbox
      1 min read

    Reviews for Comma

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words