Reviews and Selected Praise
Reviews for Stay
Many thanks to American book reviewers Anthony Avina and Grady Harp for their five-star reviews of Stay.
SaskBooks reviewer Toby Welch read Stay and felt that it expanded his reading horizons.
Reviews for Black Umbrella
From The British Columbia Review. Full review here.
“Time and again she impresses by the confidence and dexterity with which she absorbs, adapts, and repurposes these influences as the ground bass for her own very individual ends . . .”
From Prairie Flower Reads. Full review here.
“Katherine Lawrence’s latest collection, Black Umbrella, is a striking exercise in remembering. These narrative lyrical poems are deeply personal. Yet, they remains effortlessly relatable and accessible, inviting the reader to sift through their own memories—inviting the reader to consider the poetry of their own past. Here, the poet and the reader trace one another’s scars and share the lament for what was and for what might have been, while settling into gratitude for what is . . .”
From my publisher, Turnstone Press:
“Black Umbrella offers a bold portrait of family breakdown through the lens of a child, a teenager, and later as an adult who approaches love with wariness and longing. These poems speak of long-held secrets, strained loyalties, love, loss, and the courage required to embrace happiness through the thickening underbrush of adulthood.
A tough and tender collection, Black Umbrella shares a compelling view of the contemporary family in transition.”
And Lorri Neilsen Glenn, Following the River: Traces of Red River Women, said this:
“These intimate and intertwined poems gleam with a tenderness that belies their tensile strength. Lawrence mines consequential moments with sharp insight, revealing fissures in her life and the lives of those closest to her. Here is a sure-footed poet whose inventive language wrests bittersweet wisdom and uncommon grace out of the ordinary. Black Umbrella is an extraordinary collection, rich and indelible.”
Reviews for Never Mind
Comments from 2015 John V. Hicks Long Manuscript Award (1st Place)
“The language of this manuscript is a surprise. And good care has been given to the poems’ lines and syntax. These poems often culminate, combust, when meaning meets its form in ways that are lively and unexpected. The poems also have good and engaging emotional clout. The language found in these poems is both tender and full of verve. The eye/ear of the poet is unwavering in their attention to what each poem needs. There’s also a good sense of cohesiveness to these poems, they effortlessly expand, easily taking and making the shape of manuscript.”
— Sue Goyette, poet
“The poems in Never Mind create a vivid portrait of the artist with lyrical and musical intensity. The electrifying language opens the doors of perception in our mind and will allow you to see your own life from every angle”
— Ian LeTourneau, poet
Judges comments from City of Regina Writing Award, 2014 (1st Place)
“Never Mind is a series of linked narrative lyrical poems. They are set in the 19th century and told from the point of view of a Canadian settler named “Wife.” The poems are full of jagged edges and leaps; the syntax is disjointed but solid in its grasp of experience, metaphor and cadence. These poems stand out for their language and their variety in lineation to create mood and setting; they alter the experience from one moment to the next for the characters and the reader. It is an ambitious project and I wish the best of luck in continuing it. ”
— Yvonne Blomer
Reviews For Lying to Our Mothers
“…Lawrence does have an excellent eye for detail, and makes the use of the most mundane ones, like cooking porridge and stripping beds to create a moving memorial to a mother and son killed in an auto accident reported in the morning news. These poems have been honed with care, old truths restated with grace. Perhaps graceful is the best word to describe her writing style. Lawrence knows her audience.”
— Anna Mioduchowska, Dream Catcher 23, 2009
“Katherine Lawrence writes with seeming ease about the most knotty of family issues….there are
always several emotions in play, and the lines are rich with irony, the poet playing artfully with
her own desire to be young again.”
— Chris Pannel
“The unbridgeable gap between mothers and daughters is bridged here in the details of beautiful poems. The lenses are nature, boys, bad girls, food and looks. This is a field guide to girls - descriptive, qualitative, and with sharply observed habits and heart.”
— Marilyn Bowering, Poet
Reviews for Ring Finger, Left Hand
“At first glance, Ring Finger, Left Hand by Saskatoon’s Katherine Lawrence, is just another
redundant lament on marriage and family life. But crack open the spine and be ready for a startling surprise.
This first book (short-listed for the 2001 Saskatchewan best first book award) tracks the journey of one couple’s courtship, marriage, child bearing years, all the way through to their ultimate resolution: divorce.
Lawrence’s ability to use original metaphors on the “day-in-the-life” is staggering. There are times you can’t help but empathize with their desires and shortcomings. For example, when the husband admits: “I didn’t make enough money/to fill your mother’s crystal vases/with anything except/dust.” Or when the wife wonders: “Maybe if I had been organized/possessed the logic of canisters/neatly stacked …maybe I could have made us work.”
Ring Finger, Left Hand is more than a panoramic view of a family that falls apart. It is a poetic revealing of the deep layers within relationships, the description of a life we can all, at times, relate to: “We are out/of eggs, milk, apples./ We are out/of love, again.” The first book is definitely worth a read.”
— Treena Kortje