By Kevin Spenst
In a secularized society, what kind of faith in our collective powers and imaginations can be patch-worked together, and what might be the role of angels? Through multiple locales, languages, and spiritualities, A Bouquet Brought Back from Space both subverts and sublimates traditions of religious poetry, love poetry, and song.
Playful in form and formed full of play, this fourth book of poetry by Kevin Spenst explores loss, love and faith through the palindrome, Madlib, Fibonacci, found poem, prose poem, sonnet and various strains of free verse. Spenst meditates on mental health, poetic friendships and influences, and the possibility of there being an angel assigned to the Mennonites at the beginning of their global journey.
These poems sing, cry, and soothe.
Kevin Spenst is the author of Ignite, Jabbering with Bing Bong, and Hearts Amok: a Memoir in Verse (all with Anvil Press), and over a dozen chapbooks including Surrey Sonnets (JackPine Press), Upend (Frog Hollow Press) and A Video Tape Swaddled in Purple Wool (845 Press). He writes a chapbook column in subTerrain magazine and is an occasional co-host for Wax Poetic on Co-op Radio. He teaches poetry at Simon Fraser University and lives in Vancouver on unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) territory.
