{"product_id":"ossuaries-isbn-9780771017346","title":"Ossuaries","description":"Dionne Brand’s hypnotic, urgent long poem is about the bones of fading cultures and ideas, about the living museums of spectacle where these bones are found. At the centre of \u003ci\u003eOssuaries\u003c\/i\u003e is the narrative of Yasmine, a woman living an underground life, fleeing from past actions and regrets, in a perpetual state of movement. She leads a solitary clandestine life, crossing borders actual (Algiers, Cuba, Canada), and timeless. Cold-eyed and cynical, she contemplates the periodic crises of the contemporary world. This is a work of deep engagement, sensuality, and ultimate craft from an essential observer of our time and one of the most accomplished poets writing today.\u003cb\u003ePraise for Dionne Brand:\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\"[Brand] makes music and sense of our complex age.\"\u003cbr\u003e—Jury  citation, Governor General's Award\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Brand's luscious and ferocious lines go beyond  a critique of dystopian realities to construct, in themselves, in their keen, lyric  intelligence, an oasis of truth, compassion, and sensuality.\"\u003cbr\u003e —Jury Citation, Griffin  Poetry Prize\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"[\u003ci\u003eInventory\u003c\/i\u003e] shows there's no better chronicler of the ache in our  body politic. . . . In the face of the desensitization that comes with a steady diet of  the passing horrors contained in the daily news, \u003ci\u003eInventory \u003c\/i\u003eis a kind of re-sensitization:  lyrically compelling, impassioned and stirring.\"\u003cbr\u003e —\u003ci\u003eToronto Star\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eInventory \u003c\/i\u003eis damning  without being superior, sorrowful without falling into self-pity, joyful without  becoming naïve. . . . \u003ci\u003eInventory \u003c\/i\u003eis thought-provoking enough with these nuances of rage,  despair, guilt. What makes it even more powerful, and hard to put down, is Brand's  willingness to match the strength of these desolate lists with a strength of music,  dream and intimate feeling.\"\u003cbr\u003e —\u003ci\u003eGlobe and Mail\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\"You don't read Dionne Brand, you  hear her.\"\u003cbr\u003e —\u003ci\u003eToronto Life\u003c\/i\u003eDIONNE BRAND's literary credentials are legion. Her novel \u003ci\u003eTheory\u003c\/i\u003e was a \u003ci\u003eGlobe and Mail\u003c\/i\u003e Best Book. Her poetry collection \u003ci\u003eThe Blue Clerk\u003c\/i\u003e was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and won the Trillium Book Prize. Her collection \u003ci\u003eOssuaries\u003c\/i\u003e won the Griffin Poetry Prize, and other collections have won the Governor General's Literary Award, the Trillium Book Prize, and the Pat Lowther Memorial Award. Among her other novels, \u003ci\u003eIn Another Place, Not Here\u003c\/i\u003e was selected as a \u003ci\u003eNYT Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e Notable Book and a Best Book by the \u003ci\u003eGlobe and Mail\u003c\/i\u003e; \u003ci\u003eAt the Full and Change of the Moon\u003c\/i\u003e was selected as a Best Book by the \u003ci\u003eLA Times\u003c\/i\u003e; and \u003ci\u003eWhat We All Long For\u003c\/i\u003e won the Toronto Book Award. In 2006, Brand was awarded the Harbourfront Festival Prize for her contribution to the world of books and writing; from 2009 to 2012 she served as Toronto's Poet Laureate, and in 2020 she won the internationally prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction. In 2017, she was named to the Order of Canada. And in 2022, she became Editorial Director of Alchemy, a line of books within Knopf Canada. She lives in Toronto.\u003cb\u003eossuary I\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eI lived and loved, some might say,\u003cbr\u003ein momentous times,\u003cbr\u003elooking back, my dreams were full of prisons\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ein our narcotic drifting slumbers,\u003cbr\u003eso many dreams of course were full of prisons,\u003cbr\u003emine were without relief\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ein our induced days and our wingless days,\u003cbr\u003emy every waking was incarcerated,\u003cbr\u003eeach square metre of air so toxic with violence\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ethe atmospheres were breathless there,\u003cbr\u003ethe bronchial trees were ligatured\u003cbr\u003ewith carbons\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003esome damage I had expected, but no one\u003cbr\u003eexpects the violence of glances, of offices,\u003cbr\u003eof walkways and train stations, of bathroom mirrors\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eespecially, the vicious telephones, the coarseness of\u003cbr\u003edaylight, the brusque decisions of air,\u003cbr\u003ethe casual homicides of dresses\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ewhat brutal hours, what brutal days,\u003cbr\u003edo not say, oh find the good in it, do not say,\u003cbr\u003ethere was virtue; there was no virtue, not even in me\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003elet us begin from there, restraining metals\u003cbr\u003ecovered my heart, rivulets\u003cbr\u003eof some unknown substance transfused my veins\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eat night, especially at night, it is always at night,\u003cbr\u003ea wall of concrete enclosed me,\u003cbr\u003eit was impossible to open my eyes\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eI lived like this as I said without care,\u003cbr\u003etanks rolled into my life, grenades took root\u003cbr\u003ein my uterus, I was sickly each morning, so dearly\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ewhat to say,\u003cbr\u003elife went on around me,\u003cbr\u003eI laughed, I had drinks, I gathered with friends\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ewe grinned our aluminum teeth,\u003cbr\u003ewe exhaled our venomous breaths,\u003cbr\u003ewe tried to be calm in the invisible architecture\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ewe incubated, like cluster bombs,\u003cbr\u003ewhole lives waiting, whole stellar regions,\u003cbr\u003ediscoveries of nebulae, and compassion\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003efrom the cities the electric rains pierced us,\u003cbr\u003ethe ceaseless bitter days folded like good linen,\u003cbr\u003ethe phosphorous streets gave off their harmful lights\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ewe bit our fingernails to blue buttons,\u003cbr\u003ewe staggered at the high approach of doorways,\u003cbr\u003eplunged repeatedly to our deaths only to be revived\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eby zoos, parades, experiments, exhibits, television sets,\u003cbr\u003eoh we wanted to leave, we wanted to leave\u003cbr\u003ethe aspirated syllables and villages, the skeletal\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003edance floors, the vacant, vacant moons that tortured us,\u003cbr\u003ewhen the jailers went home and the spectators drifted\u003cbr\u003eaway and the scientists finished their work\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003elike a bad dog chained to an empty gas station,\u003cbr\u003efor blue blue nights,\u003cbr\u003eI got worse and worse, so troubling\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eI would fall dead like a specimen,\u003cbr\u003eat the anthropometric spectacles\u003cbr\u003eon the Champ de Mars, the Jardin d’Acclimatation\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ethe mobile addresses of the autopsy fields,\u003cbr\u003ethough I could see no roads,\u003cbr\u003eI was paid for losing everything, even eyesight\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eI lived in the eternal villages, I lived like a doll,\u003cbr\u003ea shaggy doll with a beak, a bell, a red mouth,\u003cbr\u003eI thought, this was the way people lived, I lived\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eI had nights of insentient adjectives,\u003cbr\u003eshale nights, pebbled nights, stone nights,\u003cbr\u003eigneous nights, of these nights, the speechlessness\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eI recall, the right ribs of the lit moon,\u003cbr\u003ethe left hip of the lit moon,\u003cbr\u003ewhat is your name they asked, I said nothing\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eI heard the conspiratorial water,\u003cbr\u003eI heard the only stone, I ate her shoulder,\u003cbr\u003eI could not hear myself, you are mistaken I said to no one\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ethe chain-link fences glittered like jewellery,\u003cbr\u003eexpensive jewellery, portable jewellery,\u003cbr\u003eI lost verbs, whole, like the hull of almonds\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eafter consideration you will discover, as I,\u003cbr\u003ethat verbs are a tragedy, a bleeding cliffside, explosions,\u003cbr\u003eI’m better off without, with vermillion, candles\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ethis bedding, this mercy,\u003cbr\u003ethis stretcher, this solitary perfectable strangeness,\u003cbr\u003eand edge, such cloth this compass\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eof mine, of earth, of mourners of these\u003cbr\u003ereasons, of which fairgrounds, of which theories\u003cbr\u003eof plurals, of specimens of least and most, and most\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eof expeditions,\u003cbr\u003ethen travels and wonders then journeys,\u003cbr\u003ethen photographs and photographs of course\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ethe multiplications of which, the enormity of this,\u003cbr\u003eand drill-bits and hammers and again handcuffs,\u003cbr\u003eand again rope, coarse business but there\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003esome investigations, then again the calculations,\u003cbr\u003esuch hours, such expansions, the mind dizzy\u003cbr\u003ewith leaps, such handles, of wood, of thought\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eand then science, all science, all murder,\u003cbr\u003emelancholic skulls, pliant to each fingertip,\u003cbr\u003ethese chromatic scales, these calipers the needle\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ein the tongue, the eyes’ eye, so\u003cbr\u003ewhole diameters, circumferences, locutions,\u003cbr\u003ean orgy of measurements, a festival of inches\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003egardens and paraphernalia of measurements,\u003cbr\u003eunificatory data, curious data,\u003cbr\u003ebeautiful and sensuous data, oh yes beautiful\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003enow, of attractions and spectacles of other sheer forces,\u003cbr\u003eand types in the universe, the necessary\u003cbr\u003eexotic measurements, rarest, rarest measuring tapes\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ea sudden unificatory nakedness, bificatory nakedness,\u003cbr\u003eof numbers, of violent fantasms\u003cbr\u003eat exhibitions again, of walks, of promenades\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eat fairs with products, new widgets, human widgets,\u003cbr\u003ewith music, oh wonders,\u003cbr\u003ethe implications\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ethen early in this life, like mountains,\u003cbr\u003ealready pictures and pictures, before pictures,\u003cbr\u003eafter pictures and cameras\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003etheir sickness, eye sickness, eye murder,\u003cbr\u003emurder sickness, hunger sickness,\u003cbr\u003ethis serendipity of calculators, of footprints\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ewith fossils, their wingspan of all time,\u003cbr\u003eat crepuscules’ rare peace time, if only,\u003cbr\u003elike water, in daytime, no solace, so, so different\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003efrom solitude, all solitude, all madness,\u003cbr\u003eso furious, so numerous, the head, the markets,\u003cbr\u003ethe soles of the feet, so burnt, so thin\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eand the taste, so meagre, so light-headed,\u003cbr\u003ethe cloud flashes, the lightning geometry,\u003cbr\u003ethe core of reflectivity so vastly, vastly vast\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ethe wait now, lumens of aches, such aches,\u003cbr\u003ethe horizontal and the vertical aches of lightning,\u003cbr\u003eits acoustics, loud pianos, percussive yet\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003estrings and quartets, multicellular runnels yet and yet,\u003cbr\u003ethe altitude of the passageway, its precipitation\u003cbr\u003eand grand arithmetic, the segments\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ethe latitudes of where, where and here,\u003cbr\u003eits contours, its eccentric curvatures,\u003cbr\u003eso presently, angular and nautical, all presently\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ejust fine my lungs, just fine,\u003cbr\u003ehypothesis absolutely, but just fine,\u003cbr\u003ewhy lungs, strange theory\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eoh yes and the magnitude of jaundice, trenches,\u003cbr\u003elike war, continuous areas and registers, logarithms\u003cbr\u003eso unexplainable, rapid scales, high notes\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ebesides, anyway so thermal, atmospheric,\u003cbr\u003ewondrous aggressions, approximately here,\u003cbr\u003eelaborate like radiation and seismic, yes all over\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ethe bodies’ symptoms of algebraic floods,\u003cbr\u003etiredness for one, weariness actually,\u003cbr\u003eweary with magnetic embryos\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003epetals, yes petals of sick balm please, now yes,\u003cbr\u003efor my esophagus, analgesics of indigo,\u003cbr\u003eof wires, of electric shocks, why eucalyptus leaves\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eof course lemon grass, labernum, please, lion’s claw,\u003cbr\u003eremedies of cloves, bitter bark,\u003cbr\u003estill birdless though, worldless\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003easthma with blueness, then music,\u003cbr\u003egardens truthfully, truthfully nauseous with\u003cbr\u003etonsured numbers, volumes of fibres, embroidery\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eand hair nets of violence, blue,\u003cbr\u003elike machine guns, of course knives, extensions\u003cbr\u003eof blueness, all right then wherever\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003esame radiations, lines in the forehead,\u003cbr\u003etapers, electrodes, invisible to the eyes,\u003cbr\u003eofficial hammers and corkscrews, official grass\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eofficial cities now for appearances after all this,\u003cbr\u003eall these appearances, generous, for certain\u003cbr\u003escraggly, wan, and robust appearances\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eassignments and hidden schedules of attendance,\u003cbr\u003ea promise of blindness, a lover’s clasp of\u003cbr\u003eviolent syntax and the beginning syllabi of verblessness","brand":"McClelland \u0026 Stewart","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303309234405,"sku":"NP9780771017346","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780771017346.jpg?v=1767734288","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/ossuaries-isbn-9780771017346","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}