Desire Path

by Taryn Hubbard

A debut poetry collection that grows from the impulse to explore home in the suburb – in the intersections, overlaps, and gaps between urban and rural. These are walking poems and driving poems. In growing suburbs across the country, there is a push to urbanize, to rethink this sprawling space; urban renewal is foreshadowed all over contemporary suburbs, where vacant single-family lots herald anticipation of redevelopment into something more, something better, something healthier. But before that happens, what do we make of the space as it sits, just as it is? What monuments anchor the suburb now? These poems call on superblocks, gas stations, fast food joints, flickering flat screen TVs, six-lane highways, and wildfire smoke to guide the experience of moving through the complicated markers from childhood to motherhood.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

Published October 13, 2020

About the author

Taryn Hubbard is the author of the novel, The Very Good Best Friend (Now or Never Publishing, 2025), and the poetry collection, Desire Path (Talonbooks, 2000). Her second poetry collection, Beautiful Unknown Future, is forthcoming in April (Talonbooks, 2026). She lives in Canada and is currently editing her next novel and hatching new poems.

Reviews

[diagnosed bookaholic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Desire Path is a collection of Poetry written by Taryn Hubbard. Some topics are life in Vancouver Canada, the suburbs, urbanization, pregnancy, wildfires. It is to my understanding that poetry does not always have to “make sense” to everyone. However, I found a lot of the poems to be very confusing.

Genre: Poetry