Antecedent (Downloadable PDF)
by Juleta Severson-Baker
Antecedent, Severson-Baker’s second collection, is a ferocious and candid outcry from the West. This is a book willing to reveal, to tell the frank truth, about “the weave of what is human.” Among the love and cruelty of existence, the poet uncovers fish guts, little yellow violets, a red fox in an apple orchard, and the lipstick section of London Drugs. From the small towns, big cities, mountains and prairie of her home Alberta, east to Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia, then across the pond to England—back in time through ancestors, to the beginning of the universe—Severson-Baker’s unique voice belts out tales of origin stories, "everyself" figures, and how sorrow and growth entwine in the human condition. When she tells us, with breathless wisdom, “this whole thing is about / slices of light,” we trust her.
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$9.95 CAD
Additional information
| Page Count | 80 |
|---|---|
| Binding | Soft Cover with flaps |
| Year Published | 2023 |
Juleta Severson-Baker
Juleta Severson-Baker is of settler heritage and was born and raised on Treaty 7 land in Calgary. She is an educator and poet whose first book, Incarnate (Frontenac House, 2013), was shortlisted for the W. O. Mitchell City of Calgary Book Prize and the Gerald Lampert Memorial Prize for Poetry. Her most recent collection of poetry, Antecedent (Frontenac House, 2023) was shortlisted for the WGA’s Stephan G. Stephansson Award. Juleta has been a teacher and administrator at Calgary Arts Academy, a speech arts and drama instructor at Mount Royal University’s Conservatory, a birth doula and a 911 call taker. In other identities, she is a mom of two amazing humans, a lover of nature and spending time outside, and a fierce believer in imagining a future where we transition to a sustainable economy and where all people are free.
we don’t need language
to know love
up the concrete tower
of medicine
into a pillbox office
I wheel my mother
into the speech pathologist’s
promise
re-learning a path
of jaw and swallow
littered with clots
her vowels take the air
and my holy anxieties
feather
her bent neck
lips dry
disobedient tongue
we don’t need language
to know love
the doctor glances at me
I shoot a look
pleading
help her swallow
just swallow
summer plums
roast chicken
water