Understories (Inanna Poetry & Fiction) Paperback – April 22, 2014 by Elizabeth Greene

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Inanna Publications (April 22, 2014)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 132 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 177133150X
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1771331500
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6.3 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.3 x 7.5 inches

Reviewed by LB Sedlacek

Elizabeth Greene opens up her book of poems with one telling the reader what she likes about poetry.  She seems to like the persistence of it, according to the poem.  Her poems are mostly free verse and prose.  From the title poem, “I’m living, but it’s still a party that doesn’t love me.”  She writes with the wisdom of an old soul.  Her lines seem to melt into each poem in the perfect way.  The poems are honest and connected.  There is a simpleness to them but also quietness that will seep in as you read and enjoy each one.  

The Limitations of Photography

I love to look at photographs,
but most are fictions—
separate the moment
from the flow of time.
The photographer’s eye
chooses what the lens records.
Take these of us.
Your back garden, 1994.
I’m trying not to throw my arms
around you. The photographs don’t catch
your quicksilver imagination, your leaps
toward the world of angels, guides,
your voice so polished
grocery lists sound Shakespearean.
But this picture does catch truth:
the distance between us,
unbridgeable,
prophetic.

About the Author

Elizabeth Greene is the author of three collections of poetry: UNDERSTORIES (Inanna Publications, 2014), The Iron Shoes (2007) and MOVING (Inanna, 2010). She edited and contributed to We Who Can Fly: Poems, Essays and Memories in Honour of Adele Wiseman (1997), which won the Betty and Morris Aaron Prize for Best Scholarship on a Canadian Subject, 1998. She has edited/co-edited four other books, including Kingston Poets' Gallery (2006), The Window of Dreams: New Canadian Writing for Children with Mary Alice Downie and M.-A. Thompson (1986); On the Threshold: Writing Toward the Year 2000 with Foxglove Collective, T. Anne Archer, Mary Cavanagh, Tara Kainer, Janice Kirk (1999); and Common Magic: The Book of the New, with Danielle Gugler (2008). Her poetry and fiction has also been published in journals and magazines across North America. She taught English for many years at Queen's University, and was instrumental in introducing Creative Writing into the English Department and helped to found Women's Studies. Her poetry was a finalist for Descant/Winston Collins Prize for Best Canadian Poem, 2010, 2012. She lives in Kingston with her son and three cats.