Left Fields

Left Fields, Jeanette Lynes' second collection of poetry with Wolsak and Wynn, consolidates her reputation for writing clear-eyed, accesible and deadly funny poetry. Her first book, A Woman Along on the Aitkokan Highway, immediately struck a chord in the minds of readers and writers of poetry alike: "With nimble imagination and a humour that is tough and vulnerable as the heart of country and western, Jeanette Lynes' poems speak in their own sharply tanged and quite unignorable voice." - Don McKay. In her first book she introduced us to a difficult childhood in southern Ontario; in iLeft Fields/i she revisits the solid, angry/loving bond with her mother, the attitudes she adopts as weapons against the world, and the left fields of her childhood, a landscape she never really left, but carries with her as a snail carries her house on her back. Poems such as "The Icicle Hunter" highlight her tough-tender style, with its contagious humor.