Cover art by Elaine Kowalsky
Mercury is the toxic, seductive element that Nancy Mattson uses here instead of ink to try to capture 1990s London. But truth keeps sliding off the page, and Canadian and Finnish memories, myths, and family stories intrude, giving the poems a double or triple perspective and a complex linguistic and cultural texture. These poems move between menace and generosity, loss and renewal, reflection and exuberance. They trace women’s lives from Browniehood to motherhood, postmarriage cynicism to post-romantic love, celebrating friendship and speaking passionately about violence against women. Along the way they chronicle odd customs such as totem-pole raising, falconry, ice fishing, eel mongering, berry picking and watching drive-in movies.
This book was launched on 9 November 2006, at an event in the Crypt of St Mary's Church, Islington, which was written up in her blog by Mary McAdam.
Nancy Mattson was interviewed by Helen Lowe on Plains FM in Christchurch (New Zealand). The programme is now on-line and can be accessed via the station's web site. Nancy says: ‘It can also be downloaded from there as an MP3 so it won't disappear. It's great fun hearing the kiwi accent meet the canuck!’
Writing With Mercury costs £7.50 and was published in November 2006.
ISBN: 978-1-873226-86-5
Photo © Howard Fritz
Nancy Mattson lives in London, where she moved in 1990 from the Canadian prairies. She has worked as an editor, university English lecturer, government research officer, conference organizer and in the marketing department of an investment firm. She has written articles about Canadian literature and Finnish Canadian history and culture, edited a history of the farming community in Saskatchewan, where her Finnish grandparents homesteaded, and travelled to Finland and the US as an invited speaker. She is married to poet and mathematician Michael Bartholomew-Biggs.
Writing with Mercury is Mattson’s second full collection. Her first, Maria Breaks Her Silence (Regina: Coteau, 1989), was based on the life of a Finnish woman who emigrated to Canada in the 19th century. It was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for best first book of poetry in Canada and adapted for the stage as Lye Soap and Dancing Cows.
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