Could Be

by Heather Cadsby

Poems about the unexpected and often wry coincidences language lends to life. In Could be, each poem is a moment of engaged and isolated attention, prodding language, relationships, the mundane aspects of daily life, friendships and art. It asks how we use words, how we shape them and are in turn shaped by them. In many ways, then, this book is about how we construct our world through language, and how language unexpectedly shifts the terms on us. It is wry, funny, moving and at times disturbing. It will quietly assert itself, as so often language itself does, and will challenge readers to reconsider how they engage with words and world. Fly you, wildbird
half eaten by the smog.
All sheets to the wind. Oh oh
is it laundry day?
? We wake up
to the sounds of development.
Is that Mimico Creek
in the washing machine? If you roll over
you're out of the dream and your anger
can really take shape. Sorry,
I meant passion.
- from "Perpetual Cleanup"

80 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2009

About the author

Heather Cadsby was born in Belleville, Ontario and moved to Toronto at a young age. In the 1980s, along with Maria Jacobs, she produced the monthly periodical Poetry Toronto and founded the poetry press Wolsak and Wynn. Also at this time, she organized poetry events at the Axle-Tree Coffee House in Toronto and Phoenix: A Poet’s Workshop. In recent years, she has served as a director of the Art Bar Poetry Series. Standing in the Flock of Connections is her fifth poetry collection.