Shadow Blight

by Annick MacAskill

Winner of the Governor General's Award for English-Language Poetry (2022)
Shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award (League of Canadian Poets) (2023)
Shortlisted for the J.M. Abraham Award (Atlantic Book Awards) (2023)

Shadow Blight considers the pain and isolation of pregnancy loss through the lens of classical myth. Drawing on the stories of Niobe—whose monumental suffering at the loss of her children literally turned her to stone—and others, this collection explores the experience of being swept away by grief and silenced by the world. Skirting the tropes (“o how beautiful / the poets make our catastrophes”), MacAskill interweaves the ancient with the contemporary in a way that opens possibilities and offers a new language for those “shut up in stillness.”

Genres: Poetry, Canada

64 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 2022

About the author

Annick MacAskill was the winner of a 2022 Governor General’s Literary Award for her poetry collection Shadow Blight. In the fall of 2024, she published her fourth full-length poetry book, Votive. Her previous collections include Murmurations, No Meeting Without Body, and two chapbooks—Brotherly Love: Poems of Sappho and Charaxos and five from hem. MacAskill is a member of Room Magazine’s Growing Room Collective and publisher of micropress Opaat Press. She lives in Kjipuktuk/Halifax, NS.

Reviews

[Margaryta · Rating 5 out of 5]

MacAskill's handling of Greek myth was a reminder that there are still innovative approaches to engaging with material that might otherwise seem overused or done to the point of banality. Intimate and haunting collection.

[Jacob Alvarado · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the seeds of mythological tragedy and intense grief blossoms Annick MacAskill’s Shadow Blight, a tender collection of poems dedicated to exploring one of life's greatest tragedies: the loss of a child. Blending modern conventions with ancient Greek and Roman myths, this Governor General’s Award nominee deftly blends the present with the past in a gutting exploration of the pain, loss, and transformation that comes from a miscarriage.

https://theampersandreview.ca/book-re...

[Mahnoor · Rating 4 out of 5]

So painful and so stunning. Although I have standout poems that I will return to, every single poem is essential to the story that the collection is trying to tell. Weaves together mythology and modernity seamlessly to explore the "endless ancient longing" and pain of miscarriage. So grateful for the notes in the back.

Favorite stand-alones:
- Small Warblers
- On the invention of the seasons
- Variant
- Failing
- Lupercalia
- Swimming Upwards
- Testing

[Jay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poetry book #10
5⭐️ for creative construction; clear skillful precision of language; and a book that will be returned to many more times.

Why do all my current fave female Canadian poets turn to the classics for the award winning poetry? Why do I admire so many poets who also translate? I have no idea. But, here again is a poet who knows her way with words. Deftly creating a book of meditation on the pain of giving life, from conception to modern miscarriage to the mythic consequences of Niobe’s prideful boasting of her own fertility.

Above the tales from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, MacAskill laces the ancient catastrophes discussed with modern ordinariness, coating the sorrow in moments of techy slang, and delivering each poem within a pouch of air rendering the reader captivated by the fresh stillness the poem imparts.

This is a book to come back to again and again. And a poet to watch.

[Nolan Natasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another stunning collection from my favourite poet.

[Sophie Crocker · Rating 4 out of 5]

so good

[Spencer Folkins]

MacAskill weaves personal narrative and ancient texts into a profound reflection on loss.

[Penn Kemp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ancient myth in the service of new poems on a subject that has been overlong ignored: the pain of pregnancy loss. How many women have been turned to stone like Niobe over such grief? Or transfixed, like Dryope, “another woman shut up in stillness”:
“within the inner folds
of the poplar she now inhabits,
now is, the flame of her need
burning long, tethered only to the unseen.
The best part about becoming a story
is the permanence—
But as she ceases to be heard
So she’ll cease to be—o how beautiful
the poets make our catastrophes—"
The Latin epigraphs from Ovid’s Metamorphoses come to life in MacAskill‘s translation, as do the myths of desperate women bound by careless fate. Gaspereau Press has produced a gorgeous little book that truly honors these formally brilliant, heartrending poems. Read them and weep. Read them and rejoice in the synaesthetic power of art to transfigure loss, as in “Small Warblers”, after Doireann Ni Ghriofa’s poem, “Sola/Solace”, about a warble that comes to comfort a grieving mother:
“inconsequential and familiar,
yet sparkling, like perfect round jewels
with the most remarkable prismatic calls…
these things were indistinguishable, as in a baby’s cry.
Their ordinariness does not diminish them.”

[Reagan Kapasi · Rating 1 out of 5]

For when you want to have a hard think on the poetic form and feel emotional about being a mom

[Jade Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

The poems of Shadow Blight hit quick and sharp. MacAskill continues to be a master at offering a truly contemporary spin on classic mythology.