rump + flank

by Carol Harvey Steski

A debut collection that delves into the ‘body’ from a feminist perspective.

Carol Harvey Steski’s tenacious and unapologetic debut, rump + flank, explores the body in nature’s many incarnations: human, animal, plant, microbe, even chemical. The result is a fantastical poetic work that sheds light on what bodies—especially female ones—endure, probing the full range of experiences from pleasure and hope to deep loss and trauma. These poems are piercingly humorous, sexy, and peppered with startling absurdities, but are grounded by an undercurrent of nostalgia (and a soupçon of feminist rage): mercury reproduces like funhouse mirrors, oysters are whole notes dropped into eternal song, cancer is a surly character taking and discarding lovers, a domestic chore turns dark as a mother channels her inner Lady Macbeth. Lush imagery melds with organic rhythms to spawn a visceral experience, a tendon-and-muscle-driven engine that readers can feel racing within their own bodies.

Trade Paperback / September 1, 2021 ISBN 10: 1-77439-028-0

ISBN 13: 978-177439-028-3

BISAC 1: POE011000 BISAC 2: POE023000 BISAC 3: POE024000 88 pp / 5.5 x 9 / $19.95 cdn $15.95 usd

“This is a visceral, sometimes raw, book with hidden time bombs just beneath the surface. Harvey Stelski’s voice is unique and superbly confident, speaking with a fluent urgency. It’s a book I’ve been anticipating for years. ”

~ Patrick Friesen, author of Outlasting the Weather: Selected and New Poems 1994-2020

About The Author

Carol Harvey Steski grew up in Winnipeg. Her poems have been published in the anthology Another Dysfunctional Cancer Poem Anthology, and literary magazines Room, Prairie Fire, FreeFall, untethered, and Contemporary Verse 2. She won FreeFall’s 2019 annual poetry contest and was nominated for The Pushcart Prize. Her work was featured in Winnipeg Transit’s “Poetry in Motion” program. She has appeared on CBC Radio-Manitoba speaking about the therapeutic benefits of writing through disease as a young-adult survivor of melanoma. She lives in Toronto with her husband and daughter, and works in corporate communications.

ADDITIONAL SALES POINTS

• Part of the Crow Said Poetry series. Notable Crow Said Poetry titles include The Response of Weeds by Bertrand Bickersteth,

Lullabies in the Real World by Meredith Quartermain, and That Light Feeling Under Your Feet by Kayla Geitzler. • Book will appeal to those who enjoy lyrical poetry with a feminist focus. • Has been published in literary journals across Canada.

MARKETING PLAN

• International press release mailout. • Announcement of book’s release by email newsletter and on the NeWest Press Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter pages. • Podcast reading/interview posted on Apple Podcasts, RSS feed, Facebook, and NeWest website. • Press releases and review mailouts to various CBC outlets across the nation, both radio and television. • Online Zoom launch, and eventual in-person launches in Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver. • Ads in Glass Buffalo, Prairie Books NOW, Prairie Fire, PRISM international, Read Alberta Books (Alberta Views), subTerrain, and the ULS Super Forthcoming Catalogue. • Submit to all eligible awards.

MARKETS

• National trade: lyrical poetry • US and UK trade: lyrical poetry • Toronto, ON, Winnipeg, MB

COMPARISON TITLES

• Short Haul Engine by Karen Solie (978-1-894078-11-7, Brick Books, 2001) • Table Manners by Catriona Wright (978-1-550654-67-7, Vehicule Press, 2017) • 1996 by Sara Peters (978-1-770892-71-2, House of Anansi, 2013)