Two Hemispheres

Poetry. TWO HEMISPHERES charts one woman's descent into, and recovery from, depression. Nadine McInnis finds solace and humanity in the faces of illness, and breaths an imagined life into the photographs of ten women, patients in the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum in the mid-nineteenth century. Counterpointing the photographs and the voices of these lost women with her more personal experience of depression, she crafts a stunning tribute to the resilience of human spirit and mind. "I feel like I've uncovered a treasure--the mind's brilliance and transcendence embedded in a deep geology of love and pain, and which acquire purpose here. Such bright threads of thought, compassion and language as McInnis both discourses on and inhabits the imprisoned mind. I'm astonished at the strength and passion of these poems"--Marilyn Bowering. Nadine McInnis is the author of six other books: they include short stories and essays as well as poetry. Her most recent bollection of poetry was shortlisted for the 2006 Ottawa Book Award. She lives in Ottawa where she teaches in the Professional Writing Program at Algonquin College.

Nadine McInnis teaches in the Professional Writing Program at Algonquin College.