Letters in a Bruised Cosmos

The latest from the author of the Griffin Poetry Prize Award-winning collection Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent.

GRIFFIN POETRY PRIZE, FINALIST
TRILLIUM BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY, FINALIST
 
I have to believe my account will outpace its ending.

The danger and necessity of living with each other is at the core of Liz Howard’s daring and intimate second collection. Letters in a Bruised Cosmos asks who do we become after the worst has happened? Invoking the knowledge histories of Western and Indigenous astrophysical science, Howard takes us on a breakneck river course of radiant and perilous survival in which we are invited to “reforge [ourselves] inside tomorrow’s humidex”. Everyday observation, family history, and personal tragedy are sublimated here in a propulsive verse that is relentlessly its own. Part autobiography, part philosophical puzzlement, part love song, Letters in a Bruised Cosmos is a book that once read will not soon be forgotten.  
 

LIZ HOWARD's first book of poems, Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent, won the 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize, the first time a debut collection has won the award. The book was also a finalist for the 2015 Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry. Born and raised in northern Ontario, Howard received an Honours Bachelor of Science with High Distinction from the University of Toronto. Her poetry has appeared in Canadian literary journals such as The Capilano Review, The Puritan, and Matrix Magazine. Her chapbook Skullambient was a finalist for the 2012 bpNichol Chapbook Award. She recently completed an MFA in Creative Writing through the University of Guelph and works as a research officer in cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto.