Marsha Barber lives in Toronto, where she is on faculty at Ryerson University´s School of Journalism. Marsha has been shortlisted for the international Bridport Poetry Prize and longlisted for the national ReLit award. She has won a number of other awards including several first-place prizes from the Ontario Poetry Society, and the Chester Macnaghten Prize. Marsha has been published in such periodicals as The Antigonish Review, The New Quarterly, The Walrus and The Prairie Journal.

This is Marsha Barber's fourth collection. Her writing has appeared in such periodicals as the Literary Review of Canada, The Walrus and The New Quarterly. In addition to her other awards, Marsha has been longlisted for the national ReLit Award and shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize and the Montreal International Poetry Prize. She's been a featured reader at poetry events around the world, from London to Laos. Marsha is a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Praise for Marsha Barber's Work:

The poems in this book are spellbinding in their exploration of lives touched by joy and unravelled by sorrow. The lines on the page and the soul searching that undergird them reveal Barber at her finest as a writer and most complex as a human being trying to fathom the vagaries of love and fate.

From her first book, Marsha Barber brought to poetry a mature voice, a keen eye for striking imagery, and an astute ear for the revealing phrase. Barber in her fourth collection furthers her reputation for intimate, compelling poems about family, local and global events and far-flung travels. She concludes this engaging collection with a sequence of stunning clarity about her mother's decline into senility, and Barber's own aging, with characteristic wincing insight and dialogue that sears the heart.

- Bruce Hunter, author of In the Bear's House and Two O'Clock Creek

In this, her third poetry book, award-winning poet Marsha Barber explores themes of love and loss, life and death, and the deep connections that bind us all. These are poems that will bring you joy and break your heart. Marsha is on faculty at Ryerson University in Toronto.

Praise for Marsha Barber´s Work:
Every once in a while a reader meets a book that is just exactly the right blend of sorrow and joy, of grief and whimsy, of lamentation and celebration, so much so that one might call the writing wise. What I want of poems I find here in abundance.

John B. Lee, Poet Laureate

It would be difficult to imagine a reader who cannot relate to Barber´s poetry on a personal and emotional level. Reading her poems becomes a private conversation with an acute sensibility characterized by a profound understanding of human relationships and the ending thereof

The Journal of Canadian Poetry

It would be difficult to imagine a reader who cannot relate to Barber´s poetry on a personal and emotional level. Reading her poems becomes a private conversation with an acute sensibility characterized by a profound understanding of human relationships and the ending thereof.
   - The Journal of Canadian Poetry

Marsha Barber´s poetry embodies clear-eyed observation, uncommonly thoughtful reflection, and abundant empathy, in a voice that is strong, crisp and memorable. It gets to the heart of each subject it takes on, whether childhood and the pains of growth, intimate portraiture of family members and famous creators, sorrow at the passing of loved ones, or events in the wider world. This is an involving, moving and wise book, by an author who becomes a trusted confidante, a good friend.
   - Allan Briesmaster

Read this beautifully crafted book and you will look at the world differently.
These poems from an important new voice in Canadian poetry will jolt you with their boldness and move you with their understanding of human relationships. The startling imagery, direct tone and power of the storytelling will engage your heart, as well as your mind.
This is a book to savour and to give to those you care about most.
´Luminous with hidden life, tender and acutely perceived, these poems reveal what it means to be a woman — unborn, blossoming, burning and maturing.´
Nadine McInnis