Susan Holbrook – författare

Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson are known as much for their formidable egos as for their contributions to twentieth-century arts. That either could collaborate intimately with anyone is surprising. Yet Stein and Thomson did work together, magnificently so, most notably on the landmark opera Four Saints in Three Acts and the fanciful The Mother of Us All. This annotated collection of correspondence reveals the spark that existed between the two American masters over the course of their sometimes rocky friendship. The roughly 400 letters written between 1926 and 1946 record the fascinating nature of their partnership-their mutual excitement over evolving projects and their process for bringing together two often radical aesthetic sensibilities. The style of the letters is careful and forceful when the relationship is strained, but most often it is relaxed and affectionate. As a record of friendship the letters are particularly compelling, replete with love, support, and mutual fascination. Not surprisingly, the correspondence is stylistically remarkable-Stein being arguably the most innovative literary modernist and Thomson the author of crisp, insightful, irreverent music criticism, the most quoted of his century. In addition to their artistic partnership, the letters provide a revealing glimpse into their individual careers in the realms of literature and music, as they document a web of mutual friendships and the vibrant artistic community of the early twentieth century. The editors' notes contextualize this valuable exchange and add a layer of richness and accessibility. The volume will interest readers, critics, and scholars in music, literature, avant garde arts and modern culture more generally.

Shortlisted for the 2010 Trillium Book Award for Poetry! Joyfully melding knowing humour and torqued-up wordplay, Holbrook's second collection is a comic fusion of the experimental and the experiential, the procedural and the lyric. Punch lines become sucker punches, line breaks slip into breakdowns, the serious plays comical and the comical turns deadly serious. Holbrook's poems don't use humour as much as they deconstruct the comic impulse, exposing its roots in the political, the psychological and the emotional life of the mind. Many of these poems import shapes and source texts from elsewhere -- home inspection reports, tampon instructions, poems by Lorca -- in a series of translations, transpositions and transgressions that invite a more intimate and critical rapport with the written word. This is not merely a book, it is a chocolate-covered artificially intelligent virus with an impish sense of humour that will continue to replicate in your mind long after initial exposure.

In 1934, Gertrude Stein asked "What is poetry and if you know what poetry is what is prose." Throaty Wipes answers this question and many more! How does broadband work? Does "chuffed" mean pleased or displeased? What if the generations of Adam had mothers? Through her signature fusion of formal innovation and lyricism, Holbrook delivers what we've been waiting for. Susan Holbrook is the author of three poetry books, including Joy Is So Exhausting and Reading (and Writing About) Poetry (Broadview Press, 2015). She lives in Leamington, Ontario, and teaches at the University of Windsor.

Shortlisted for the ReLit 2022 Poetry Awardink earl takes the popular subgenre of erasure poetry to its illogical conclusion.Starting with ad copy that extols the iconic Pink Pearl eraser, Holbrook erases and erases, revealing more and more. Rubbing out different words from this decidedly non-literary, noncanonical source text, she was left with the promise of “100 essays” and set about to find them. Among her discoveries are queer love poems, art projects, political commentary, lunch, songs, and entire extended families. The absurdity of the constraint lends itself to plenty of fun and funny, while reminding us of truths assiduously erased by normative forces. ink earl’s variations are testament in micro to the act of poiesis as not so much a building as an intrepid series of effacements; we rub away at the walls of language we’ve lived within in order to release both what’s been written over, and what we want to say now.

Menopause: so many symptoms, so few remedies, so many years, so few heads-ups.In Steamy, you'll find forty-five of the ever-expanding list of things people can encounter when going through The Change, including challenges (such as #4 Night Sweats and #21 Anxiety) and boons (such as #41 Individuation and #45 Fewer Shits).In this raucous memoir, Susan Holbrook opens up an experience still constrained by cultural silences and myths. Steamy is honest, vulnerable, gross, and might just be the funniest book you've ever read about menopause, or anything else (see #37 Bloating).If, at a certain stage of life, you find yourself sucker-punched by a sweaty fistful of symptoms you can't believe no one told you about, Steamy is for you and for all the other hot-and-bothereds out there.