Sublunary

Sublunary navigates the otherworldly geographies of complicated grief, renewal, climate emergency, love, and survival, interweaving dreamlike surrealism, humour, and compassion.

The poems in Lisa Richter’s third book, Sublunary, engage with all things under the moon: a human collection rooted in grief and renewal. Drawing together the sudden death of a father, the climate emergency, urban pastoralism, Jewish folk traditions, love, desire, and societal breakdown, the collection navigates the surreal, bewildering geographies of loss with Richter's characteristic mix of dreamlike fabulism, humour, and pathos. From mythological locales to the streets of pandemic-era Toronto, these heartfelt poems interweave a multiplicity of lyric voices, collaged text, associative leaps, and moments of absurdity and wonder to create a nuanced portrait of what “a reckless intimacy with the world” might look like—for better or worse. Ultimately, this capacious book of elegy, play, and upheaval advocates for an ethics of care, solidarity, and compassion for our perfectly imperfect selves and each other: a mode of survival that is full-throated and at times, even joyous.