Galaxy

Poetry. Winner, SFU Writer's Studio's First Book Competition. GALAXY is about a wounded family (Anger brimming until it overflows / into rage in the dark living room, / his undershirt soaked through / up the back to his collar), a prairie place (Ochre River girls / have a one-room school, / walk through fields of wheat, / play in silos, storing grain dust / in their lungs, / later to exhale it / like cloudy fire), love that is queer and conventional, about longing and loss (tempus fugit / my father emails, / now or never, / and I can't I don't / wish to speak to my mother. / I don't believe the mere flight of time / is reason enough) and a light shone into dark corners.

A truly wonderful collection of poems. Wonderful and clear imagery as well as a 'real' and 'true' sense of place, love, longing, family, and the constant struggle and re-negotiation of self and experience. GALAXY possesses a simple but sensual approach to language and tone.--Michael Dennis
Ms. Thompson gets the emotional centre right, dead on in fact. These poems avoid the screaming siren of the gender wars and get on about their business. Thompson's GALAXY is familiar territory emotionally, it is wonderfully authentic poetry.--Gregory Scofield, author of kipocihkan: Poems New & Selected

...a coming-of-age collection full of memorable strikes of pleasure and pain... GALAXY is a book of extremes: the poems rocket between childhood / adulthood, rural / urban and desire / love. And although Thompson traffics in strong images and abrupt juxtapositions, she also allows room for doubt and ambivalence. Which is to say: Very nice! (More poems, please!)--The Winnipeg Free Press