Left Fields

Left Fields, Jeanette Lynes' second collection of poetry with Wolsak and Wynn, consolidates her reputation for writing clear-eyed, accesible and deadly funny poetry. Her first book, A Woman Along on the Aitkokan Highway, immediately struck a chord in the minds of readers and writers of poetry alike: "With nimble imagination and a humour that is tough and vulnerable as the heart of country and western, Jeanette Lynes' poems speak in their own sharply tanged and quite unignorable voice."—Don McKay. In her first book she introduced us to a difficult childhood in southern Ontario; in Left Fields she revisits the solid, angry/loving bond with her mother, the attitudes she adopts as weapons against the world, and the left fields of her childhood, a landscape she never really left, but carries with her as a snail carries her house on her back. Poems such as "The Icicle Hunter" highlight her tough-tender style, with its contagious humour.