Divided
Linda Frank
April 17 2018
96 pages | ISBN 978-1-928088-58-5
**Winner of the 2019 Vine Award for Canadian Jewish Poetry**
**Long shortlisted for the 2019 ReLit Award for Poetry**
Looking deeply into humanity’s interactions with the animal world, Linda Frank considers our fascination with and fear of nature, as well as our exploitation of all species. These poems catalogue not only the beautiful and sometimes deadly complexity of our natural world, but investigate the ways we have sought to understand it, highlighting the struggle of women scientists to push past misogyny. In these poems Nabokov’s butterflies live on beside flea circuses and von Frisch’s bees are as detailed as the habits of the jewel wasp. This is a collection written with a botanist’s eye and a scientist’s attention to cause and effect, both a lament and paean to a world that is vanishing.
Reviews | Interviews | Articles | Excerpt | About the Author
Reviews
Today's book of poetry: Divided. (Michael Dennis, Today's Book of Poetry, 10/02/2020)
"Divided is that completely unexpected cornacopia of delights."
Divided, we fall ... for Linda Frank’s poetry (Jeff Mahoney, Hamilton Spectator, 11/07/2018)
“Wonderstruck by nature and science, [Frank] uses them beautifully in this book to draw out the most myriad and finely observed insights, on everything from sexual politics and bedroom intimacy (or the lack of it) to species extinction, the swiftness of life, religion, control, capture, the call of the wild and children."
4 Women with New Books of Poems! (Catherine Owen, Marrow Reviews, 26/06/2018)
"This is a vital text as there is not a single piece in here that doesn’t consider other life forms than the human. […] These pieces are more than worth an embedding in your empathetic core."
A Review of Amanda Jernigan's Years, Months, and Days and Linda Frank's Divided (Zachary Thompson, Hamilton Review of Books, Spring 2018)
"None of [her] interpretations are ever in conflict with one another. Rather, they enhance an already dense set of poems by offering sundry entry points. In a time where much popular poetry resembles candid notebook entries or performative tantrums, Frank's poems arrive refreshingly and consolingly classroom-ready."
Interviews
Poetry Grrrowl: Divided + Linda Frank (All Lit Up, 25/04/2019)
"I began to write poems of my own by fourth or fifth grade."
Linda Frank : part one (Thomas Whyte, poetry mini interviews, 12/10/2018)
"I am presently completing my fifth book of poetry centered around the state of Florida where my grandparents first came when they immigrated to the US from Russia. My parents both lived and died there and my sister lived and died in North Carolina. The manuscript is a mix of personal, historical and environmental poems, all centered on the state of Florida."
Get Lit episode for 2018-07-19 (Jaime Tennant, Get Lit, 19/07/2018)
An interview with Linda Frank
Articles
Read Hamilton (Open Book, 27/11/2023)
A wonderful gathering of Hamilton books in one place, including Linda's poetry.
Claire Holden Rothman, Anne Michaels among 2019 Vine Awards winners (Star Staff, Brampton Guardian, 23/10/2019)
"The jury said that 'Divided uses the power of poetry to analyse the relationship between humankind and nature in often devastatingly clear language. It documents with both beauty and dispassion the complexity of the animal world – including human beings – in a way that will resonate for a long time to come.'"
KFB 2018 PICKS (Kirby, Knife Fork Books, 04/12/2018)
Kirby names Linda's books as one of the best collections of poetry for 2018.
Divided by Linda Frank (CBC Books, 22/01/2018)
"These poems investigate the fearsomeness of nature, cataloguing its shimmering beauty in crisp lines before showing the uncompromising endings."
Excerpt
About the Author
Linda Frank was born in Montreal and now lives in Hamilton, Ontario. A retired professor from Mohawk College, she has written three books of poetry: Cobalt Moon Embrace, Insomnie Blues and Kahlo: The World Split Open, which was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Award. She is a past winner of the Banff Centre's Bliss Carman Poetry Award and has been shortlisted for the National Magazine Awards.
