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From the archives

The Trust Spiral

Restoring faith in the media

Dear Prudence

A life of exuberance and eccentricity

Who’s Afraid of Alice Munro?

A long-awaited biography gives the facts, but not the mystery, behind this writer’s genius

Making Soup in January

 

A kind of violence

required —

thwack of knife on cutting board,

sweet potato’s tough flesh split,

onion chopped to tears

 

Pohk — the can opener’s

cranky circuit

liberates chick peas,

highlighting a need

for colour: green

pepper to wake

an eye, dispel

 

sluggishness — oh, logy

as a sleep-drugged bear,

stiff as the backyard’s crusted snow

 

Months until

green breaks through

 

In the pot, onions release

raucous fragrance,

yams soften, tomatoes

bleed acid into broth —

 

the steam a moist balm as I stir

 

Sue Chenette wrote the documentary poem What We Said, about her first-hand experiences as a social worker
during Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. Her latest collection, Clavier, Paris, Alyssum, is due out this fall.

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