Night for the Lady, A

A Night for the Lady explores the terrain of poetry conversation. Each poem arises from conversations with poets, colleagues and intimate friends. They range from a 1998 conversation on healing programs and the fundamentals of world change to a sequence of recent indigenous literary events on the prairies. Within the context of these conversations, an exploration emerges of the roles of woman within local as well as historic literary and global situations. The poems draw together diverse figures from world literature, world religions and myths to lay open the experience of human beings within the "brown-feminine." Identifying and synthesizing connections across a wide palette of human experience, this collection challenges the divisions of personal and global, indigenous and "everyone else," all the while celebrating both the humanity and the divinity of the Lady. Playful, erotic and occasionally harrowing, this collection bundles together experimental and inspirational work from a longstanding voice of conscience in Canadian letters. Once again, Arnott carries us into the most intimate terrain, casts her net widely, catches us up.

Joanne Arnott is a Mé tis/mixed-blood writer and arts activist living in Salish territories, based on an island in the mouth of the Sto:lo River (Richmond, BC). An active blogger, mentor, and volunteer with national and local literary organizations, Joanne is mother to five sons and one daughter, all born at home. This is her seventh book.