Homage to Happiness
by Judith Krause
Paperback (Poetry)
8.5" x 5.25" · 104 pages
Release Date: October 2014
ISBN 9781926710297
In Homage to Happiness, Judith Krause writes with extraordinary sympathy and a light touch of humour, as she probes the nuances of love and loss and how both must be experienced if there can be any hope for true happiness. The title sequence is a deft and moving poem on the life and work of Agnes Martin, an abstract expressionist born in Saskatchewan who gained prominence in New York art circles in the 60’s and 70’s. Contemplating the inescapable themes of lyric poetry — time, mortality, nature, and the contradictions of the human heart — Judith Krause turns them to provocative and unexpected ends.
“These vivid, compelling poems are forged with a deep awareness of how time has us pinned. Here, joys are hard-won, like the pleasure of the arsonist who waited until “the scream of sirens/pumped enough/oxygen into his blood/ that he could run.” They’re also pure as horses who “swing their shiny rumps/to focus again on apples,” or indelible as a French President’s last meal, where an entire bird is “popped,/back end first, into his dying mouth.” Krause’s poems let us experience the whole messy complexity of human fulfillment, because they are completely alert to the necessary hunger at its core.”
Judith Krause
Judith Krause is a Regina writer, editor and teacher whose work has appeared in many magazines and anthologies. She holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College as well as a BA and BEd from the University of Regina. She has edited a number of poetry collections and co-edited the anthology Out of Place with Ven Begamudre. Her earlier publications include four poetry collections: What We Bring Home (1986), Half the Sky (1994), Silk Routes of the Body (2001), and Mongrel Love (2008) and a collaborative chapbook, blue transport/ the insistence of green (2007). Krause is a two-time recipient of the City of Regina Writing Award, co-winner of the Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize, and has been awarded residencies and fellowships in the U.S. She is currently serving as the Saskatchewan Poet Laureate.
