Handfuls of Bone

by Monica Kidd

Monica Kidd’s Handfuls of Bone takes the reader to the end of the road and back, to outports both literal and figurative, to consider how it is that things somehow hold together. The poems, primarily short, narrative in form and lyric in spirit, are driven by distilled observation and concern themselves with the elemental. These truths find their expression in images of fish drying on Newfoundland clotheslines, of the velvety breath of a newborn baby, of a family’s grief following a sudden death, of Amelia Earhart’s ambition and apprehension, and of motherhood through thick and thin. In confronting uncomfortable moments of loss, want, illness, uncertainty and conflict, Kidd holds a level gaze, avoiding sentimentality and nostalgia. Kidd’s is a poetic which embodies the twin skills of her physician’s training–cool-headed and unblinking observation-based diagnosis combined with compassion, empathy and humanity.

Genres: Poetry

71 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Monica Kidd is an award-winning journalist specializing in science and health reporting, and a multidisciplinary writer. She is the author of eight books of fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

Reviews

[Bookkaholic Magazine · Rating 5 out of 5]

(See our full review over at Bookkaholic.) Kidd has an uncanny ability to take familiar, everyday words and make them surprising and evocative. She turns nouns like "Rapunzel" and "west" into verbs. Written in a variety of tones, the poems address topics of motherhood, Amelia Earhart, anatomy, and responses to photographs, weather, and landscape, but the whole is a finished collection – the lyrical backbone and strong themes of body and place tie everything together.

[Marlies · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful collection. The paper, the font, the illustrations, and especially the poems. Kidd went from small-town Alberta to St. John's and back again to Calgary. I can identify with that! After reading this collection of poems, I wish I knew Kidd so that I could sit down and have a conversation about the people and the stories behind these poems. What a beautiful collection.