Empties

Neil Surkan is the author of two other books of poetry, Unbecoming and On High, as well as the chapbooks Die Workbook, Ruin, Their Queer Tenderness, and Super, Natural. He is the poet laureate of Nanaimo, BC.

"Empties explores vessels from all forms of holding and breakage to the poem itself as a vessel, which ‘firms / the gap between the world and all / that sings, creeps, or dies.’ Elemental and philosophical, this book traces brackish waters to raspberry patch mishaps and smouldering ashes, each poem brimming with Surkan’s inquisitive and empathetic mind, where ‘each question / chisels open the vessel / I’ve kept sealed / inside myself.’ From beautifully crafted lyric poems to the playfully experimental ‘Die Workbook,’ Surkan offers expansive meditations on climate grief, repairing fractured relationships, and worries over what we leave behind. These poems sing for a world on the brink of extinction, ‘first / in dapples then fervent / collage.'" – Cassidy McFadzean, author of Crying Dress "To read Surkan’s meticulously crafted new collection is to feel yourself drawn through his language like seawater drawn gleaming through stones, exposing a world of hidden treasures, surprising connections, and deep channels of loss – and what music it makes!" – Patrick James Errington, author of the swailing "Taut with music, Neil Surkan’s Empties is a book of ‘precarious harmonies’ in a time of climate collapse. Through its wondrous attention, Empties inhabits the intimacy between strophe and catastrophe, tracing the overlapping experiences of song and destruction. ‘And who / isn’t my neighbour / now?’ Surkan asks, articulating awe’s relation to grief. Empties invites us to inhabit the relations that ruin reveals and gently insists we stay there, teaching us that the opposite of empty is not full but rather ‘connected.’ By consciously caring for these connections, Surkan suggests, we can ‘inspirit broken places.'" – Julie Joosten, author of Nought “With the care of, say, an analogue watchmaker, or a musical arranger, [Surkan] places his pinions, his notes – in this case, words – with a sharp and focussed eye, ear, and mind, into tight, efficient, poetic mechanisms.” – The British Columbia Review

• Brackish 3Endurance 5Empties 6The Seeding of Clouds 7Flounder 9Sure 10A Crack 11Burning Question 12Smokesong 13Remains 14Ars Poetica 15Descriptions of Coral 16Sirens 17[faith]The Lag 21Ruin 22Unhomesickness 23Is Through 26Murmurations 27The Edge 29Kiss 30Reflection 32Brinks 33Time to Apologize to Your Mother 36[Without you,]The Deep 41The Will 48Take 49Optimism 50The Worst 51Tattoo Talk with the Acupuncturist 52The Recapitated 53Limits 54Well 55Vessel 58[running]Die Workbook 73Empties 86Notes 89Acknowledgments 91