{"product_id":"waking-occupations-isbn-9780771099397","title":"Waking Occupations","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe second collection from the acclaimed author of \u003ci\u003eAdmission Requirements\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis astonishing new collection of poems contemplates our obligations to live in a creative, generative, and revolutionary way amid a cascade of global contingencies.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eIn a four-part meditation on what it means to live on occupied land and in colonial time, the subject of these poems has moved beyond arriving and departing and wakes each day to meet her commitments and to heal from complicities, exclusions, difficult truths and the pandemic of forgetting. It follows the figure of the female artist as a time-travelling woman, embodied by mother and daughter, through the gallery of memory. The poems enact brief encounters with objects, events, and works of art that hold us accountable. Finally, a set of shadow elegies mourn what the next generation has already lost, while searching for traces of the wild and for ceremonies that might mend us.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWaking Occupations\u003c\/i\u003e is an urgent, essential collection that considers what we carry from previous generations and our liabilities to the cyclical nature of the work that uplifts us.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003ePraise for Phoebe Wang and \u003ci\u003eWaking Occupations\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Traversing the personal and the collective, Phoebe Wang’s \u003ci\u003eWaking Occupations\u003c\/i\u003e offers profound meditations on creativity and survival that honor artistic works as sites of memory, and that recognize the poet and artist as memory-keeper. Rich in ache and eloquence, these poems thrive in their gifting of language and sonic fluidities reaching across time and space. Wang’s collection restores toward a new futurity while refusing to be forgotten.” —Mai Der Vang, author of \u003ci\u003eYellow Rain\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“The politics of this collection are experiential, immersive, are breathed in and out of the living body, waking or sleeping. The voice is often calm, meditative, but shot through with urgencies. I read the first poem again and again, couldn’t get over its uncannily embodied portrait of colonial trespass inflected by a doubleness of identity—a poem that is truly an 'embrace in reverse.' The subsequent poems are infused with the same intelligence, imagistic vividness and rich responsiveness to the world of and beyond the self. Read this book and feel your nerve endings extending more deeply into the multiple spheres of life you inhabit.” —Sue Sinclair, author of \u003ci\u003eHeaven’s Thieves\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“‘We had stable conditions until we didn’t,’ Wang writes, inviting us to glean insights from collective history and art. These poems are a precise calm in the midst of stormy weather, salvaging life’s humble moments from the catastrophe that is history, refusing monstrous calculations, and gifting us the possibility of a future, even when the system's odds have been stacked against life itself. Without guarantees, this book honestly attends to life.” —Rita Wong, author of \u003ci\u003ebeholden: a poem as long as the river \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003ePHOEBE WANG is a writer and educator based in Toronto, Canada, and a first-generation Chinese-Canadian. Her debut collection of poetry, \u003ci\u003eAdmission Requirements\u003c\/i\u003e was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, and nominated for the Trillium Book Award. She is a poetry editor with \u003ci\u003eThe Fiddlehead Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e and served as the 2021-2022 Writer-In-Residence at the University of New Brunswick.for a Veneer of Progress\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen I concede a fictional country, I gain a battleground,\u003cbr\u003ewake stunned as if under attack      and come to relearn\u003cbr\u003ethe architecture of my sloughed-off clothing, my uniform\u003cbr\u003eof striped shirts and rigid black jeans      splayed books,\u003cbr\u003eunagitated water glass, brass and silver chains\u003cbr\u003efastening light to the wall, holding it accountable.\u003cbr\u003eAnother time I rose from a rush mat on the floor,\u003cbr\u003efastened myself into hooks and eyes      heard myself\u003cbr\u003enamed by honorific      nonexistent from the record of harvests\u003cbr\u003eexcept as a handprint in dust      an unscripted drama.\u003cbr\u003eAnother time I masked as a boy and vanished to sea.\u003cbr\u003eSo this morning that is a rupture      is a gain of sorts\u003cbr\u003ethough the body is still contested      under ribbed occupation\u003cbr\u003eand to rise under the deadweight of progress\u003cbr\u003eis to unlatch myself      from soft, enveloping creases\u003cbr\u003eis to overcome the paralysis of productive time     while enfolding\u003cbr\u003ein my collars and eyelids      acts of sleepless refusal.","brand":"McClelland \u0026 Stewart","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301902209253,"sku":"NP9780771099397","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780771099397.jpg?v=1767743554","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/waking-occupations-isbn-9780771099397","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}