"Openwork and Limestone" by Frances Boyle

  

Ottawa-based writer Frances Boyle has been busy in recent years. Since 2018 she's published four books: a novella, Tower, in 2018, followed by a second collection of poems, This White Nest, in 2019 and a short story collection, Seeking Shade, in 2020. (The latter was a finalist for the Danuta Gleed and ReLit awards.) After taking a year off to catch her breath, Frances is back with her third poetry collection, Openwork and Limestone, published by Frontenac House.

Here's a sample poem from the book:

Strange Scattered Year

I cobble together some shape like stars, 

gas cloud of spangles, sensory noise

a beautiful typeface of serifed

angels and italicized galaxies. Last year 

declines to cohere. I’m out of practice 

reaching for the shelf

to take down fragments rattling 

in their sealer jar. Bright ring

and clamouring disk with its ovoid dance

on tabletop or dark drift of space. 

Dust of that year toxic to breathe; 

I need a particulate mask to filter it. 

That year, melded by star-shine,

stuck to those before and aft, adhesion

of moist exhales. Trial and tributary, ribbon

of spilled milk. I gather it in handfuls,

sop it up, recap the static, staccato 

tumbling voices, eerie dance

of memory. The monitor dial inches 

through situations half-heard. A moving line,

a pointing finger. Evidence in star systems 

we pretend are fixed. His belt, her chair.

Try to slake my thirst with what, I believe,

is a firm grip on the ladle’s hilt.

 

"Last year declines to cohere." Goodness, yes. This poem backs up the book's jacket copy (a rarity!), which says the book "turns inward and outward at the same time, telling our multifarious collective human story so that it feels like our own intimate family history."

When someone puts out so many books, so quickly, it can seem like a sign of a sudden outburst of productivity, but is more likely the result of the slow accumulation of high quality work, which, for whatever reason, finally arrives in the hands of enthusiastic publishers. Frances suggests as much on her website: "I've been making stories since before I could hold a pen. I've written most of my life, with pauses or minimal output during years of raising a family and working in the legal field. Since being able to devote more time to my craft, my short stories and poems have been published..."

One downside to having so many books published quickly, and having them come out in and around a pandemic, is that - like, I assume, giving birth to quadruplets - it's hard to give each individual the attention it deserves.

The busyness that kept Frances from publishing most of her books until recent years was also likely tied to being steadily on the move: raised in the Prairies, she went to school in Regina, then had stops in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver before settling in Ottawa. (Sorry Maritimes, no Frances for you!) 

We're lucky to have Frances finally making a trip back to Vancouver, to celebrate not one, but two of her books (COVID having prevented her from traveling to promote Seeking Shade). She'll be joined by special guests Steffi Tad-y and Ellen McGinn for a free reading at People's Co-op Bookstore next Tuesday, October 18th at 7 PM.

Steffi Tad-y will be celebrating her own debut collection, From the Shoreline (Gordon Hill Press, 2022), and Roll of Nickels favourite Mariner Janes will be there hosting (you can read my interview with Mariner here).

Here's the poster:

I really encourage you to take in the event (a Writer's Fest worthy lineup without the $25 ticket price!), and if you can't make it, to pick up Frances' and Steffi's books.

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Frances Boyle’s previous books include the poetry collection This White Nest (Quattro Books 2019), Tower, a novella (Fish Gotta Swim Editions 2018), and Seeking Shade (The Porcupine’s Quill 2020), a short story collection which won first place for short fiction in the Miramichi Reader’s Very Best! Awards and was a finalist for the Danuta Gleed Award and a ReLit Award. Her writing has been published throughout North America and internationally. Born and raised on the prairies, Frances lives in the historic Lindenlea area of Ottawa, with her partner Tim and a large and slightly eccentric standard poodle. Openwork and Limestone is her third poetry collection.