Seal up the thunder

January 2005
80 pages | ISBN 978-1-894987-00-4

"Erin Noteboom's is an elemental poetry of bones, salt, water, dust, and at the same time a celebration of all things as holy. In these arias of praise and prayer, her gift is to flare the ordinary detail as well as the extraordinary event into vision, meaning, and the magnification of spirit." – Jane Hirshfield

"The praise, the hymn, the humility wrestling with the lover's urge for God, the absolute feel for the flesh and blood of the mystics, the prophets and those simply redeemed in frailty; Noteboom writes the finest theophanic poetry being written in this country." – Pier Giorgio Di Cicco

Reviews

Bible and Battle (James S. Torrens, America Magazine, 10/17/2005)
"The poetry here is extensively lyric, that is to say, imaginative and rhythmic."

Excerpt

"Cain reflects on cutting Abel's throat"

Now I have lived a long time
and had not thought to see
something new – but something flew
(like sparrows flushed from roost
and then the tree is still)
something flew up, a rush
as fast as flame – and irrevocable.
He said just one word –
God - and it was like
my name. (Ah this
is what God like –
the blood and flame.)
Your brother's blood
make mouth in earth, God said
and with earth and blood
He marked me – half god,
half man, His at last,
and blushing

About the Author

Erin Noteboom comes from the American prairies. From a childhood steeped in family, science and writing, Erin first choose science when the two options of science or poetry split apart. She collected a physics degree, worked at the CERN accelerator in Geneva, and took the world’s first Polaroid of Cherenkov ring. After a brain tumour rearranged her priorities Erin went back to poetry, and immigrated to Canada in 1997. She has been published widely in literary magazines since then, winning the CBC Literary Award in 2001, the 2004 KW [Kitchener Waterloo] Arts Award, and Acorn/Plantos Award for Peoples poetry in 2004. She is the poetry editor for the New Quarterly, runs writing workshops in Kitchener, Ontario, and is active in the literary community.

Other Titles by this Author

The Mongoose Diaries: Excerpts from a mother's first year (2007)