Recalling Hopkins or Dickinson in their urgency, these poems seduce the reader into experiencing life's darkest moments while revealing unexpected shafts of light. In a voice that is at once confident, elegant, and doubtful, the author scans the world as if through the wrong end of a telescope, employing recurrent images and exploring obsessions to produce a remarkably exact account of remote, intimate dealings. "I will have to explain myself to myself," she writes, but in doing so communicates a great deal about all of us.

Past Imperfect: Poems

Literature & Fiction

Buffam, Suzanne

Poetry

House of Anansi Press

The Irrationalist

Canarium Books

“Buffam’s often deadpan tone is like a magical dustpan that sweeps up the strangest observations and ideas, all worlds to themselves. Her ‘Little Commentaries’—‘On Piñatas,’ ‘On Fountains,’ and ‘On Vanishing Acts’ (to name only a few)—are absolute gems, kin to Anne Carson’s town poems and Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit. Buffam’s poems tug at new corners of the brain. They’re marvelous.” - Matthea Harvey “Buffam begins with a world that ends, a world that is always ending. This is not despair, but a shrewd mind behind an honest eye that in wry observation creates out of small poems a book of knowledge, ‘Little Commentaries,’ which show there is no wisdom unsharpened by wounding wit. That motion is an essential motion, and these are essential poems.” - Dan Beachy-Quick “These poems try to achieve something almost impossible: not to betray the ironic today while celebrating the interiority of a serious meditation. And they succeed in doing it. What a treat!” - Adam Zagajewski

Poetry. Literary Nonfiction. Not a memoir. Not an epic. Not an essay. Not a spell. Not a shopping list. Not a nocturne. Not a dream book. Not a prayer. Not a novel. Not an apology. Not a dossier. Not a complaint. Not a manifest. Not a manifesto. Not a field report. Not a promissory note. Not a recipe. Not a résumé. Not a confession. Not a lullaby. Not a secret letter sent through the silent palace hallways before dawn.

A Pillow Book

About the Author\nSuzanne Buffam is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently A PILLOW BOOK (Canarium Books, 2016), which was named one of the ten Best Poetry Books of 2016 by The New York Times. Her other books are The Irrationalist, a finalist for the 2011 Griffin Poetry Prize, and Past Imperfect, winner of Canada's 2006 Gerald Lampert Award. Her work has been supported by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Jeannette Heian Ballard Writers' Trust, and the Canada Council for the Arts. Born and raised in Canada, she lives in Chicago.\nPoetry. Tenth Anniversary Edition. In acclaimed poet Suzanne Buffam's second collection, her unusual range, formal rigor, and imaginative force are on full display as we are introduced to the wry meditations of a literary "irrationalist" who pursues her own poetic logic beyond the bounds of reason. Throughout the collection, in resolutely modern, rueful and eccentric lyrics, Buffam investigates the shifting grounds of knowledge while refusing to take any philosophical authority too seriously. Together, these poems compose a swift, durable, protean argument for the necessity of interior maps in a world that may be on the eve of extinction, but whose darkness is continually illuminated by a pyrotechnics of curiosity, candor, and wit.\n"THE IRRATIONALIST takes nothing for granted. Its rhythms manage to mimic the mind at work, the mind edgy and witty and sharp. The tones are brave and sweeping, ready to re-define the world, alert not only to history and the exigencies of the contemporary, but also to larger questions to do with philosophy, with time and space."--Judges' Citation for the 2011 Griffin Prize Shortlist

The Irrationalist (Tenth Anniversary Edition)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Buffam, Suzanne. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Buffam, Suzanne

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Buffam, Suzanne. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Past Imperfect: Poems

The Irrationalist

The Irrationalist

A Pillow Book

The Irrationalist (Tenth Anniversary Edition)