Precordial Thump

by Zoe Whittall

Insightfully showcasing the inner divide, this poetic memoir aims to break down the larger lies of poetic form and the smaller dishonesties within the self. A fixation on medical language and the crucial aspects of what it means to be human, to love, and to be loved are woven throughout this collection. Featuring compelling lesbian themes, this is a humorous book of self-discovery that conjures up all the joy, toughness, and melancholy of being a girl, both elegant and scruffy at once.

Genres: Poetry, Canada, Queer, LGBT

100 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 27, 2008

About the author

Zoe Whittall's latest novel, The Best Kind of People, spent 26 consecutive weeks on the Globe bestseller list, was shortlisted for the Giller Prize, was Indigo Best Book of the Year, Heather's Pick, Globe and Mail Best Book, Toronto Life Best Book of 2016, Walrus Magazine Best Book of 2016 . The film/TV rights have been optioned by Sarah Polley who will write and direct. She has two previous novels and three collections of poetry, and has written for the televisions shows Degrassi, Schitt's Creek, and The Baroness Von Sketch Show. She won the KM Hunter award for literature, and a Lamda Literary award for her second novel, Holding Still for as Long as Possible. Her debut, Bottle Rocket Hearts, was named one of the top ten novels of the decade by CBC Canada Reads, and one of the Best Books of 2007 by The Globe and Mail and Quill & Quire magazine. She has published three books of poetry, Precordial Thump, (exile, 08) The Best Ten Minutes of Your Life (McGilligan Books, 01) and The Emily Valentine Poems (Snare Books, 06.) The Globe and Mail called her "the cockiest, brashest, funniest, toughest, most life-affirming, elegant, scruffy, no-holds-barred writer to emerge from Montreal since Mordecai Richler…”. She was born in South Durham, Quebec, resided in Montreal during the early 1990s and has lived in Toronto since 1997.

Reviews

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Toronto writer Zoe Whittall's new poetry collection Precordial Thump packs a punch. It can be read from back to front cover, beginning to end. Either vantage point showcases a divide: the honest and the dishonest. Both the liar and the lied to emerge - action and reaction. All words have consequence. A fixation with medical language and the crucial aspects of what it means to be human, to love and be loved, are woven into the poetics of this collection.

Pop culture plays a critical role in Whitall's previous poetry books The Best Ten Minutes of Your Life and The Emily Valentine poems, yet this body of work portrays a more introspective, brash, urban voice. "Improper Use of an Ambulance Stretcher" and "Dear Liary" feature pivotal aspects in time, flashes of the commonplace, the sublime. The very moments that define us.

Whittall is a documenter, a mapmaker. Her marriage of medicine and poetry, "Begin With the End in Mind" and "In Spite of all the Damage" breaks the mould of staggering hearbreak aftermath, though it's the universal-shaped brusies of "Abrasion" and "Premature" that will remind readers all moments are previous, no matter how earth-shattering or paradoxical. All life is luck, love, lies and memory.

[Zoe]

This is my new book! Let me know what you think.