Background
Holmes was born in Edmonton and went to high school in Toronto.
( Adultery with its pleasure, pain and outrage! No one wr...)
Adultery with its pleasure, pain and outrage! No one writes the poetry of adultery as does Nancy Holmes. For her guide, she takes the poet Ovid who schools her in his tender cynicism and teaches her the art of love. The poems themselves participate in the affair, forming the third party in the inevitable triangle, as they remind the poet that her life and follies are the fuel for art. No matter how ridiculously one behaves or how poorly one chooses, Holmes affirms, the adventure of lust and love is one of the deepest pleasures of our adult life.
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( Mandorla is a collection of poems about mothers and chi...)
Mandorla is a collection of poems about mothers and children, especially the mothering of challenging children, children with disabilities. In the first section of Holmes’ new collection of poems, the Virgin Mary is the archetypal suffering mother who worries about the fate of her son. Through a poetic re-drawing of the hieratic poses of icons of the Virgin in the Eastern Orthodox Church, Holmes comes to recognize the fear and absolute love for a child who is fated to be different. The second section moves out of cultural myth into family history, the Ukrainian side of the poet’s family, people who settled in north-eastern Alberta in the first years of the twentieth century. In the last section of the book, the author focuses on her own experience of motherhood, its pain and comedy, its bewilderment and bedazzlement, its crushing collisions with schools and social systems. Holmes creates a triptych that opens up some of the emotional and spiritual adventure of being a parent, that most heart-breaking yet enriching of human roles, past or present. "Mandorla is a generous, high-spirited trilogy that overturns the narrative of silencing that its subject so often inspires. Holmes’ portraits of women and mothers, both real and iconic, are flamboyant gestures of affection and difficulty." —Sharon Thesen
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Holmes was born in Edmonton and went to high school in Toronto.
She then attended the University of Calgary where she received her Master of Arts in English.
She has published four collections of poetry and many short stories. Her poetry and fiction have been published in A Room of One"s Own, Lichen, The Malahat Review, Matrix, Prairie Fire, Grain, The Harpweaver, and The Antigonish Review. Holmes is an Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia Okanagan.
( Mandorla is a collection of poems about mothers and chi...)
( Adultery with its pleasure, pain and outrage! No one wr...)