Match

(Paperback)

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Description

Robert Brand has given up on real women. Relationships just havent ever worked out well for him. He has, however, found a (somewhat problematic) solution, a new feminine ideal: the 110-pound sex doll he ordered over the internet.

Showing an uncanny access to the voice of the rejected, unimpressive, emotionally challenged modern male, Helen Guris debut collection explores Roberts transition from lost and lonely to loved, if only by the increasingly acrobatic voices in his mind.

Matchs touching, whip-smart poems chart the limits of the mind/body relationship in decidedly virtual times. Does our heros lovesick, wry, self-searching and often self-annihilating gaze signal some catastrophic aversion to depth or a feverish (if unsettling) reassertion of the romantic impulse Can anything good really happen when the object of ones affection is, literally, an object And if she looks like a human being, can you ever know for sure she isnt one

Equal parts love story, social parody and radiant display of lyrical gymnastics, Match announces the arrival of a daring, forthright and stubbornly original new talent.

Reviews

'For its apparently effortless metaphorical reach I'd call this a page-breaker of a book, as long as you understand we're talking praise here, not iconoclasm. Have I read a first collection as good as this since the century's turn I have not.' -- Don Coles, author of Forests of the Medieval World 'There is an eeriness at the margins of normalcy Helen Guri elicits with metaphors at turns daft, incisive, playful, pensive, but always unexpected. In a voice better read than explained, these poems stride confidently into the arcade of Canadian poetry.' -- David Seymour, author of Inter Alia

Author Bio

Helen Guri graduated from the University of Toronto's Creative Writing program, and has taught writing at Humber College. Her work has appeared in many Canadian journals, including Arc, Descant, Event, Fiddlehead and Grain. Match is her first collection. She lives in Toronto.