The Perfect Unravelling of the Spirit is about memory of being, being in body, spirit and speculation. It unravels the remembrances and cognitions forged in the mind as it recalls life through images that are intensely reflective, transtemporal, sensual, daunting and mournful, sometimes feeling like never-ending, lazy arias. As we move from poem to poem, we dwell in magnificent displays of sensations, ideas, and moods, happy and sorrowful, pleading and celebratory, allowing ourselves to reconstruct life through the physicality of the body or the world, perceiving their pulsating powers and anchoring ourselves in the house that we sometimes forget we have. The collection is also about memory of place, of family, of birth, and memory obtained through formal learning, and how that memory, in all its dimensions, is transposed to the page, recreated and reinvented. Deeply philosophic as well as lyrical, the collection interrogates the idea of memory in multiple narratives that juxtapose various modes of expression, argumentation, mood, imagery, tone, and cultural references.
Language
Place of publication
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 211 mm
Width: 137 mm
Thickness: 8 mm
Weight
ISBN-13
978-1-894770-96-5 (9781894770965)
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Schweitzer Classification
Irene Marques holds a PhD in Comparative Literature, a Masters in French Literature, a Masters in Comparative Literature and a Bachelor of Social Work. She is a bilingual writer (English and Portuguese) and Lecturer at Toronto Metropolitan University where she teaches literature, literary theory and creative writing. She has taught at various other universities in Toronto including University of Toronto, York University, and OCAD University. Before devoting herself entirely to academia and writing, she worked in various social services fields for over fourteen years. Her published works of fiction include Wearing Glasses of Water (poetry, 2007), Habitando na Metáfora do Tempo (short stories, 2009), The Perfect Unravelling of the Spirit (poetry, 2012), The Circular Incantation (poetry, 2013), My House is a Mansion (novel, 2015), Daria (novel, 2021) and Uma Casa no Mundo (novel, 2021), which won Prémio Imprensa Nacional/Ferreira de Castro in Portugal. She has also published the academic manuscript Transnational Discourses on Class, Gender and Cultural Identity (Purdue University Press, 2011) and numerous articles in international journals or scholarly collectives.
