First published 2019
This collection examines the nature of meaning itself through precise, contemplative poems. Thammavongsa, known for her acclaimed poetry, presents her fourth book as an investigation into how significance forms and dissolves around us. The poems trace meaning's unpredictable behavior: how it can shatter our assumptions, obscure what once seemed obvious, or emerge from the smallest moments to reshape everything. Some meanings take years to surface, if they ever do. Others refuse to signify anything at all, and that absence becomes significant too. The collection shows meaning as an persistent force that operates regardless of our desires or understanding. Each poem serves as a case study in meaning's various modes of arrival and departure, creating a meditation on the fundamental ways we make sense of experience.
Genres: art, literary-fiction, anthologies, poetry, 21st-century, academic
Vibes: atmospheric, contemplative, intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: case-studies, meditation, precise-language
Period: 21st-Century
112 pages · Paperback · McClelland & Stewart