Cut Side Down

Praise for Cut Side Down:

“Could the Bard himself have come up with the amazing sonic description ‘snapping dirt-streaked asparagus’? Underpinning the collection is the sense that there is something both thrilling and deviant about putting these sounds and feelings into words: ‘Words / —sex, garments, death—turn to ash in the mouth. / But we thrill in the deceit!’”—Frances Grace Fyfe, Montreal Review of Books

Praise for Jessi MacEachern:

“MacEachern taps into what poetry does best, which is to bypass logical explanations and dive into an emotional core that here sings of strength above all.”—Quill & Quire, starred review

“A long poem divided into six parts, A Number of Stunning Attacks plays with storytelling and style in intense, intimate imagery and stimulating abstract language. MacEachern is precise in her choice of words as they unfurl down the pages, surrounded by enough white space to let them move freely as needed – a delight with a greater purpose.”—Robyn Fadden, Montreal Review of Books

“There is an unstable, fragmentary eroticism to MacEachern’s debut collection of long poems. Reading, I am often stunned by images that glimmer with innuendo, but can’t be tracked down”—Klara du Plessis, 49th Shelf

“This is a sensual sensory journey and MacEachern writes with a rhythm that brings the reader into the felt-sense of her world, and holds us captive there in the stillness of her spaces… In MacEachern’s text, the spaces between words are as important as the words themselves. And this, I believe, is the point. Attacks is worth reading a second time—once as introduction to a new environment and the second for the sake of wonder at her immersive World.”—Atlantic Books Today

“In her amazing debut volume of poetry, Jessi MacEachern unfolds a panoply of encounters, some at points of intersection, others at moments of separation. They are uneasily situated in narratives, but who the subjects are is subject to interpretation. And to change. A Number of Stunning Attacks is tantamount to a broad set of disorientations and disturbances, often unsettling and always generative, for both the poet and the reader. We might think of this as a poetry of the romantic distance that always lies between two people, a poetry of lyric impossibility. The thrill and anguish of that impossibility has captivated us for thousands of years. It is as ancient as the poetry of Sappho and as contemporary as the work contained in this book—a record of the perennial quest to let love be heard and to make love known.”—Lyn Hejinian