Divided

by Linda Frank

From fireflies to the use of feathers to adorn hats, Linda Frank looks deeply into humanity’s interactions with the animal world, considering both our fascination with and fear of it, and our exploitation of all species. These poems investigate the fearsomeness of nature, cataloging its shimmering beauty in crisp lines before showing the uncompromising endings. This is a collection written with a botanist’s eye and a scientist’s attention to cause and effect, both a lament and paean to a world that is vanishing.

Genres: Poetry

100 pages, Paperback

Published April 24, 2018

About the author

Linda Frank grew up in Montreal but has been living in Hamilton Ontario since 1977. She received a BA from McGill University and an MA from McMaster University.

She is an executive member of the Hamilton Poetry Centre and presently teaches at Mohawk College in Hamilton Ontario. Linda Frank has won several awards for poetry including the Bliss Carman Award for Poetry (2008), and a Hamilton and Region Arts Council Award. Her work has been widely published in journals and anthologies across Canada. She has published three chapbooks: Taste the Silence; ...It Takes A Train To Cry; and Orpheus Descending. Her collection of poetry called Cobalt Moon Embrace was released in 2002 from BuschekBooks. Her latest collection, Kahlo:The World Split Open is from Buschek Books, 2008.

Reviews

[Margaryta · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a flow and ease to Frank's poems that is frequently thrown off by a kind of simplicity, an almost face-value, neatly wrapped quality that wasn't what I expected from "Divided". This caused me to jump around in my opinion within the collection, enjoying some poems more than others but still finding every poem appealing despite the varying degree of interest I felt across the collection. Frank's poems are acceptable, personal as well as historical, never seeking to throw their reader off or trip them up with anything excessive, and perhaps that is the greatest charm of "Divide" - it is a collection that actually entertains, which is the right kind of lightness to enjoy, even if it might not stick around in the mind for too long after finishing.