{"product_id":"fast-commute-isbn-9780771051975","title":"Fast Commute","description":"\u003cb\u003eFinalist for the 2023 Trillium Book Award for Poetry\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003epowerful book-length poem on environmental destruction and the violences of colonial nation-states from the acclaimed author of \u003ci\u003eSettler Education\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere is a lament for places in flux, where industrial, commercial, or suburban development encroaches or invades. From Highway 401 to Refinery Row east of Edmonton, from Lake Ontario to the Fraser River, this long poem\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003etakes aim at the structures that support ecological injustice and attempts new forms of expression grounded in respect for flora, fauna, water, land, and air. It also wrestles with the impossibility of speaking ethically about “the environment” as a settler living within and benefiting from the will to destroy that so often doubles as nationalism.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFollowing physical routes and terrains, \u003ci\u003eFast Commute\u003c\/i\u003e exists both within and outside the dissociative registers of colonialism and capitalism. This deeply engaging book offers a way to see, learn about, and live in relationship with other-than-human life, and to begin dealing with loss on a grand scale.\u003cb\u003eFinalist for the 2023 Trillium Book Award for Poetry\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“[A]n urgent lament for all we are losing. [\u003ci\u003eFast Commute\u003c\/i\u003e] is both an attempt to speak with clarity to the unspeakable, and a realistic look at what settler life is continuing to wreak upon our world. It is a collection of poetry that deeply engages the reader in a vital exploration of the destruction of the environment, while at the same time forging startling new language to honor the very landscape under threat. ”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—2023 Trillium Award Jury Citation\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eFast Commute \u003c\/i\u003eis an inventory, a checklist of damages. The book describes the honest face of our culture’s ‘myth of unlimited growth’ and catalogues the scars and desecrations all around us—from strip malls to oil refineries (with their ‘manufactured cloud formations’) to residential schools. Yet in the middle of these lists and all this damage are glimpses of something real, even sacred.'” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eAlberta Views\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"The incantatory verses in\u003ci\u003e Fast Commute \u003c\/i\u003ecast a circle of heightened attention, in which it is safe to confront all that we avoid in our distracted lives. It is made of scenes and fragments that at first throb with alienation and grief for all we have done to harm the more-than-human world, until the steady accretion of images and language conjures a spell calling us to right relationship and protecting us from the acedia that comes with living in colonized landscapes. Those who are comfortable in the world, will be disturbed by these verses; those already disturbed will take comfort in them.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Trevor Herriot, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eIslands of Grass\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Graham has set herself a vital moral task: actually to see the fantastic violence of resourcist culture, its appalling and unremitting abuse of the land, and to name the cultural forces that render that vast degradation almost invisible, reduce it to a blur on the edge of our fast commute. She has produced a work of unflinching, articulate witness. A keening, at once precise and profound.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Jan Zwicky\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eLaurie D. Graham grew up in Treaty 6 territory (Sherwood Park, Alberta). She currently lives in Nogojiwanong, in the territory of the Mississauga Anishinaabeg (Peterborough, Ontario), where she is a writer, an editor, and the publisher of \u003ci\u003eBrick \u003c\/i\u003emagazine. Her first book, \u003ci\u003eRove\u003c\/i\u003e, was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for best first book of poetry in Canada. Her second book, \u003ci\u003eSettler Education\u003c\/i\u003e, was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry. Most recently, her third collection, \u003ci\u003eFast Commute\u003c\/i\u003e, was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry. Her work has been shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize, won the Thomas Morton Poetry Prize, and appeared in the\u003ci\u003e Best Canadian Poetry\u003c\/i\u003e anthology. Laurie’s maternal family comes from around Derwent, Alberta, by way of Ukraine and Poland, and her paternal family comes from around Semans, Saskatchewan, by way of Northern Ireland and Scotland. She has about a century of history in Canada.Aggregate conveyor pokes above the treeline at sunrise.\u003cbr\u003eSilhouettes of crows perched in the silhouettes of trees,\u003cbr\u003efires not yet ripped through here. Sun orange and correctly\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eascending over new mountains of developers’ slag—\u003cbr\u003eall the For Lease signs along the artery, all the Styrofoam castles\u003cbr\u003eforming in the boonies. The signs won’t stay up in the wind.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSchool buses bumping down the highway like apocalypse.\u003cbr\u003eEarth mounded up, garbage gathering at the stumps of hills,\u003cbr\u003ea canal of it grazing the houses’ foundations.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBrownfield and a flash of fresh woodchips. Blue branches\u003cbr\u003eand red ones and yellow ones in the sea of greys,\u003cbr\u003ewinter unending but constantly interrupted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo cross this high over a creek, to stay that far away\u003cbr\u003eand claim to live here. I had a dream about a return\u003cbr\u003eof warmth, sudden and lively. Scratching a dog’s ears\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eand getting a nuzzle in return. People gathered beside water.\u003cbr\u003eA big five-armed birch. I woke to maples\u003cbr\u003ebleeding sap on the sidewalks. I woke trying to tally\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ethe loss in a clearcut, all that intelligence wiped out\u003cbr\u003efor parcels of capitalist language. How I might also be\u003cbr\u003ea tree ripped out, and the machinery, interrupting\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eany chance to dig in, to know somewhere.\u003cbr\u003eThe fury that builds whenever we pull up stakes.\u003cbr\u003eAnd the need to do it, to follow the money. The relief I feel.","brand":"McClelland \u0026 Stewart","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303197102309,"sku":"NP9780771051975","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780771051975.jpg?v=1767726753","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/fast-commute-isbn-9780771051975","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}