Æther: An Out-of-Body Lyric
Catherine Graham
April 6, 2021
126 Pages | ISBN 978-1-989496-29-9
**Winner of the 2022 Fred Kerner Book Award**
**Shortlisted for the 2022 Trillium Book Award**
**Shortlisted for the 2021 Toronto Book Award**
In Æther Catherine Graham has created a luminous homage to family, to cancer and to the strange windings of truth. Swimming through time and space, Graham introduces her mother, her father and herself and the cancers that pull them apart and bring them together. Memories mesh with visitations and multiple stories unfold of pain and loss, hidden tragedy, forgiveness and growth. With an otherworldly delicacy Graham stitches it all together to create a book-length lyric essay of lingering and profound beauty, a paean to the complexity of love and survival.
Interviews | Articles | Excerpt | About the Author | Other Titles
Reviews
Kim Fahner : Aether: an out-of-body lyric, by Catherine Graham (Kim Fahner, periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics, 01/10/2021)
"Loss teaches us lessons, and the poet has conveyed this notion so poignantly in this beautiful hybrid, lyric essay."
Aether: An Out-of-Body Lyric (Mary Ann Moore, Story Circle Network, 21/05/2021)
"While the poet’s journey may have come out of the aether, and all the visitations and memories that entails, there’s a groundedness in that acknowledgment of survival. Readers can be reassured by the end of the book that it is possible to travel from reverie to revelations and a form of wholeness."
Catherine Graham's Aether: An Out-of-Body Lyric (Catherine Owen, Marrow Reviews, 03/05/2021)
“The collection may be subtitled an 'out-of-body lyric' but to me it felt like a 'bodily epic,' rooted in metastasis and blood, in anorexia and sexuality, in literary rejection and tormented relationships."
New Canadian poetry to kick off National Poetry Month (Barb Carey, Toronto Star, 01/04/2021)
"Catherine Graham’s seventh book of poetry is an intricate reverie, in poetry and prose, which floats back and forth in time and between memories, dreams and reflections."
Interviews
A Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview with Catherine Graham (David Lonan, Fevers of the Mind, 20/08/2021)
"Grief hit me hard but also became a catalyst to my creative journey."
The Poets Lighthouse: Catherine Graham (Phynne-Belle, "The Poets Lighthouse," 29/05/2021)
Catherine speaks with the Poetry Global Network about her collection.
Micro Interview with Catherine Graham from Issue #3 (Kathryn Mockler, Send My Love to Anyone, 14/03/2021)
Kathryn Mockler interviews Catherine Graham about choosing subject matter.
Articles
Fred Kerner Book Awards 2022 Shortlist Announced! (Canadian Authors Association, 10/06/2022)
"With poetic delicacy counterpointed by plain speaking, Aether never shirks from the realities we must all face if we are to see the experience of living through to the end.”
Literary Awards 2022: A Coast-to-Coast Roundup (All Lit Up, 08/06/2022)
Catherine's collection is on this list of independently published winners and nominees from literary awards all across Canada!
TIFA’s 2021 Holiday Gift Guide for Book Lovers (TIFA Blog, 02/12/2021)
Catherine wonderful collection makes TIFA’s 2021 Holiday Gift Guide for Book Lovers.
Lit Locale: Broken Landscapes in Æther: An Out-of-Body Lyric (All Lit Up, 06/08/2021)
Graham tells All Lit Up how her cancer diagnosis led to a connection to the ethereal that prompted her to write Æther and what broken landscapes mean to her.
55 Canadian poetry collections to check out in spring 2021 (CBC Books, 31/03/2021)
Catherine's poetry makes the CBC's list of poetry collections to check out in spring 2021.
What We're Reading: Editors' Picks, Spring 2021 (Hamilton Review of Books, 12/02/2021)
Catherine's poetry makes the HRB's list of most anticipated spring titles!
Most Anticipated: Our 2021 Spring Poetry Preview (49th Shelf, 04/02/2021)
Catherine's poetry makes the 49th Shelf's 2021 Spring Poetry Preview.
Excerpt
"Candle Trees" by Kathleen McCracken
About the Author
Catherine Graham is a poet, novelist and creative writing instructor. She is the author of six acclaimed poetry collections, including The Celery Forest, a CBC Best Book of the Year and finalist for the Fred Cogswell Award for Excellence in Poetry. Her Red Hair Rises with the Wings of Insects was a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award and CAA Poetry Award and her debut novel, Quarry, was a finalist for the Sarton Women’s Book Award for Contemporary Fiction and Fred Kerner Book Award and won the Miramichi Reader’s “The Very Best!” Book Award and an Independent Publisher Book Awards’ gold medal for Fiction. She holds an MA in creative writing from Lancaster University (UK). Her poems have been translated into Greek, Serbo-Croatian, Bangla, Chinese and Spanish and have appeared in The Malahat Review, Arc Poetry Magazine, Glasgow Review of Books, Exile Quarterly, The Fiddlehead, Poetry Daily, Poetry Ireland, Gutter Magazine and have been broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster, anthologized in The White Page / An Bhileag Bhan: Twentieth Century Irish Women Poets and The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Vol IV & V. A finalist for the Montreal International Poetry Prize, she has won the Arc Award of Awesomeness and her poems have been nominated for the 2020 National Magazine Award by Exile Magazine. She teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto where she won an Excellence in Teaching Award. A previous winner of the Toronto International Festival of Authors’ Poetry NOW, she leads their monthly book club and is also an interviewer for By the Lake Book Club. Visit her online at www.catherinegraham.com and @catgrahampoet.
Other Titles by this Author
Put Flowers Around Us and Pretend We're Dead: New and Selected Poems (2023)
The Celery Forest (2017)
Quarry (2017)