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
