Author(s): Claire Gaskin

Poetry

In her second major collection, Claire Gaskin explores the human condition, disengaging language from our assumptions in order to reassemble an emotional and intellectual integrity. In the best surrealist tradition, Paperweight plays the game of exquisite corpse - dismantling language to reveal how it imprisons experience within a system. Conversely, Gaskin then shows how imagery can liberate in moments of pure surprise and how the constraints of form such as the villanelle and the pantoum can force invention. Spare yet expressive, playful yet wise, Paperweight celebrates the visceral power of poetry and its connection to the body, personal history, and the immergence of the unconscious in us all.