Cusp/detritus

Rooted in the back alleys, squats and psychiatric wards of contemporary Vancouver and Montreal, these unyielding poems enter the intersecting tensions and intensities in characters such as Mike, a panhandler on Vancouver''s Commercial Drive, Matthew, a runaway punk, and Dara, a single mother. ''Cusp''''s central sequence, however, concerns the tragic life and death of Frank Bonneville, a schizophrenic and drug-addicted artist who became Ms. Owen''s muse between their 2001 meeting and his 2003 suicide. Complemented by Karen Moe''s haunting photographs of Vancouver''s neglected spaces and rejected objects, ''Cusp/detritus'' is a testimony to an obsession with the lost. "It is intentionally unsettling, disturbing, sad, and you cannot deny it, a celebration of a life." - Prairie Fire