WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

January 25, 2009

Montreal writer Carolyn Marie Souaid's fifth book, Paper Oranges (Signature, 112 pages, $15), is the kind you keep coming back to.

Many of her lines have an aphoristic quality: "When you haven't done/ freedom in a while/ you forget/ what it sounds like."

Other times Souaid's clarity is gripping:

"Were we busy watching all-night sports?

The good news is good news, of course,

practical tips on how to replant:

Once daily, kiss an apple.

In case of injured ova, make salt.

Sing as though the sky were a bowl of oranges."

Souaid is funny too, often just in the choice of titles such as Stuck in Traffic, Listening to a Yuletide Message of the Emergency Broadcast System.

There's anger, wit, and social comment here, in lines that sing on the page.

 

- Maurice Mierau