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Blurbs:
44 Words
In her new book, And With Thy Spirit, award-winning poet and mystic, April Bulmer, speaks in the tongues of many women based on her visions of past lives. Even her favourite tree is a familiar old soul and "bows his stiff knees/ to weather."
198 Words
And With Thy Spirit is a new book of poetry in which author, April Bulmer, unravels the story of her soul like gauze from a bandaged wound. Confident in the Eastern philosophy of reincarnation: the concept that we begin a life after biological death in a new body (human, animal or spiritual), she describes the garden of women who bloom like damp blossoms from her fertile womb. She recalls the stories of their roots, the energy of their suns and moons.
Life after life, the Lord has taken her, often in the dim "when shadows genuflect/ on buffalo skin." A feminine soul deeply entrenched in Native culture and ritual her God limps for her like "an old coyote/ past miracle sites/ and stones of pagans./ Through fallen fields/ where the living send/ their prayers."
Her women have also enjoyed the company of many men. Lucille Sky, for instance, walks the river with her lover their "souls speaking tongue: canoes and fish/ and the God of blood." She wants Johnny Nanticoke's brown hand on her breast "like a shadow/ on Grandmother Moon."
April's ghostly incarnations often come to her in "the moments before sleep," their hair wild with dream.
About the author
April Bulmer is a Canadian poet. She was born and raised in Toronto but has visited Saskatchewan where Good Grief is set. April holds Master's degrees in creative writing, religion and theological studies from major universities. Much of her writing deals with women and spirituality and the divine feminine. Many of her dozen books have been shortlisted for awards, including the International Beverly Prize for Literature in London, England, the Pat Lowther Memorial Award for the best book of poetry by a Canadian woman, the Next Generation Indie Book Awards in the U.S and the Global Book Awards. She won the YWCA Women of Distinction Award in the art and culture category in Cambridge, Ontario where she lives. Her work has also been celebrated and published widely in prestigious journals, anthologies and newspapers. For critical response to April's writing and more biographical information, please see www.aprilbulmer.wordpress.com. To purchase her books, please see www.aprilbulmer.com.
