Spring 2018 Poetry Collections

As we enter the new year, we’re gearing up for a new catalogue. Right on cue, the two poetry collections for Spring 2018 have arrived. Broaching the darker subjects of death and mental illness in respectively unique ways, Aidan Chafe’s Short Histories of Light and Sarah Tolmie’s The Art of Dying are the latest additions to the Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series.

Short Histories of Light
By Aidan Chafe

Vivid, haunting, and rhythmical, these poems illuminate the struggles of mental illness and uncover the sinister side of religion.

In his debut collection, Short Histories of Light, Aidan Chafe recounts his Catholic upbringing in a household dealing with the common but too often taboo subject of mental illness. Vivid and haunting, at once tender and terse, Short Histories of Light captures what it feels like to be a short circuit in a world of darkness.

The Art of Dying
By Sarah Tolmie

A satirical look at the euphemistic practices of dying today.

Sarah Tolmie’s second collection of poems is a traditional ars moriendi, a how-to book on the practices of dying. Confronting the fear of death head-on, and describing the rituals that mitigate it, the poems in The Art of Dying take a satirical look at the ways we explain, enshrine, and, above all, evade death in contemporary culture.

Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series

McGill-Queen’s University Press is pleased to be the publisher of the Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series. Launched in 1998, the series is named in honour of the late Hugh MacLennan, acclaimed Canadian novelist and a poet in his own right. It is funded by proceeds from the intellectual property of Hugh MacLennan’s estate, which he donated to McGill University.

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