Talking to Strangers

Talking to Strangers is a book of bracing encounters. Throughout her four decades as poet, Rhea Tregebov has displayed an uncommon eye for the mysteries of ordinary life— moments where, as she writes, “ [t]he simplest things / elude me.” This gift is brought to brilliant effect in her eighth book of poetry and most charged to date. In gorgeous arias of recollection and evocation, of elegy and heartbreak, Tregebov mourns, praises, prays, regrets, summons, celebrates, and bears witness with formidable artistry and tenderness (“ You wouldn’ t think the inanimate would get tired /but it does.” ) Direct, never forced, keenly observant, and marked by scrupulous craft, these new poems unfold in beguiling, often breathtaking ways. They confirm Tregebov’ s place among the most significant poets of her generation.

Rhea Tregebov is the author of seven acclaimed books of poetry and two novels, The Knife Sharpener’ s Bell and Rue des Rosiers. Her work has received the J. I. Segal Award, the Nancy Richler Memorial Prize for Fiction, the Malahat Review Long Poem Prize, the Pat Lowther Award, and the Prairie Schooner Readers’ Choice Award. Retired from teaching at UBC, she now holds the position of Associate Professor Emerita and is the former Chair of The Writers Union of Canada. She lives in Vancouver, Canada.