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Cactus Gardens
Set against a backdrop of shifting weather and a blasted, mysterious landscape, Cactus Gardens explores the complexity and intensity of personal relationships. The narrator drifts through a variety of locales, from a hospital ward to a lakefront hotel, a downtown condo, and restaurant patios, depicting friendships that are as meaningful and volatile as romantic entanglements.
The final section deals with the fallout of a disastrous relationship the author had with a much older, established writer. After publishing an essay about their relationship, Lau was filed with a lawsuit and subjected to intense media scrutiny, resulting in years of self-doubt and a complete retreat from prose writing. After feeling muzzled for years, she returned to the craft of poetry. When the writer died, she was finally able to re-examine and write about their complicated relationship, excavating its tangle of memories and emotions. Those poems now form the final section of this book, The Salton Sea.
Cactus Gardens is Evelyn Lau’s ninth collection of poetry.
The final section deals with the fallout of a disastrous relationship the author had with a much older, established writer. After publishing an essay about their relationship, Lau was filed with a lawsuit and subjected to intense media scrutiny, resulting in years of self-doubt and a complete retreat from prose writing. After feeling muzzled for years, she returned to the craft of poetry. When the writer died, she was finally able to re-examine and write about their complicated relationship, excavating its tangle of memories and emotions. Those poems now form the final section of this book, The Salton Sea.
Cactus Gardens is Evelyn Lau’s ninth collection of poetry.
- GenresPoetry
107 pages, Paperback
First published October 7, 2022
About the author
Evelyn Lau
25 books79 followersEvelyn Lau was born July 2, 1971 in Vancouver, British Columbia to Chinese-Canadian parents, who intended for her to eventually become a doctor. Her parents' ambitions for her were wholly irreconcilable with her own; consequently, her home and school lives were desperately unhappy. In 1986 she ran away from her unbearable existence as a pariah in school and tyrannized daughter at home.
Lau began publishing poetry at the age of 12; her creative efforts helped her escape the pressure of home and school. In 1985, at age 14, Lau left home and spent the next several years living itinerantly in Vancouver as a homeless person, sleeping mainly in shelters, friends' homes and on the street and often supporting herself by selling her body to much older men.
Despite the chaos of her first two years' independence she submitted a great deal of poetry to journals and received some recognition. A diary she kept at the time was published in 1989 as Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid. The book was a critical and commercial success. Topics and individuals discussed in the book include some of Lau's various relationships with manipulative older men, the life and habits of a group of anarchists with whom she stayed immediately after leaving home, Lau's experiences with a couple from Boston who smuggled her into the United States, her abuse of various drugs, and her relationship with British Columbia's child support services. The film The Diary of Evelyn Lau (1993) starred Korean-Canadian actress Sandra Oh.
Lau had a well-publicized romantic relationship with University of Victoria creative writing professor and author W. P. Kinsella which led to the filing of a libel case against her[3]. She currently lives in Vancouver, where she freelances as a manuscript consultant in Simon Fraser University's Writing and Publishing Program. For invitations to poetry readings and festivals, the author may be contacted through Oolichan Books.
Lau began publishing poetry at the age of 12; her creative efforts helped her escape the pressure of home and school. In 1985, at age 14, Lau left home and spent the next several years living itinerantly in Vancouver as a homeless person, sleeping mainly in shelters, friends' homes and on the street and often supporting herself by selling her body to much older men.
Despite the chaos of her first two years' independence she submitted a great deal of poetry to journals and received some recognition. A diary she kept at the time was published in 1989 as Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid. The book was a critical and commercial success. Topics and individuals discussed in the book include some of Lau's various relationships with manipulative older men, the life and habits of a group of anarchists with whom she stayed immediately after leaving home, Lau's experiences with a couple from Boston who smuggled her into the United States, her abuse of various drugs, and her relationship with British Columbia's child support services. The film The Diary of Evelyn Lau (1993) starred Korean-Canadian actress Sandra Oh.
Lau had a well-publicized romantic relationship with University of Victoria creative writing professor and author W. P. Kinsella which led to the filing of a libel case against her[3]. She currently lives in Vancouver, where she freelances as a manuscript consultant in Simon Fraser University's Writing and Publishing Program. For invitations to poetry readings and festivals, the author may be contacted through Oolichan Books.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 11, 2025
Uff I love it. So many killer similes. A master of making setting spring up around her reader.
January 17, 2024
⭐ 3.5
"Today I vow to sit under the sun-shade slanted over the patio - count my riches, ignore all loss."
"Father's Day, and that tiresome grief rises."
"Today I vow to sit under the sun-shade slanted over the patio - count my riches, ignore all loss."
"Father's Day, and that tiresome grief rises."
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews