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Winner of the 2002 Dorothy Livesay Award for Poetry (BC Book Prizes)
Shortlisted for the 2002 Griffin Poetry Prize
The 2002 Gerald Lampert Award for first book
Longlisted for the 2002 ReLit Awards.
Karen Solie takes risks with perception and language, risks that pay off in such startling ways that it's hard to believe this is a first book. Short Haul Engine is one great twist of fate and fury after another. The writing is clear, striking and open to all sorts of possibilities. Even at their most playful, these poems dive much deeper than initially expected. There's a remarkably dark sense of humour at work here, but tempered with a haunting vulnerability that makes even the sharpest lines tremble.
from "Signs Taken for Wonders"
...Too delicate for these dog-days, small, clover-blonde, my sister sews indoors. I ask her to fashion me into something nice, ivory silk. I am a big girl, sunburnt skin like raw meat, sweating two pews in front of the Blessed Virgin...
About the author
Karen Solie's first collection of poems, SHORT HAUL ENGINE (Brick Books, 2001), won the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and was shortlisted for the 2002 Griffin Poetry Prize, the ReLit and the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Her second, MODERN AND NORMAL (Brick Books, 2005), was shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry. Her poetry, fiction and non-fiction have appeared in numerous North American journals. She is a native of Saskatchewan and now lives in Toronto.
