The candid, direct poems of
Canoodlers
interrogate sexuality, friendship, family, language, and social, cultural and political phenomena. Straddling genders, sexualities and social positions, the collection hilariously but harrowingly follows the growth and class leaps of a "townie tomboy."
From family relations ("Dearly beloved, Don Cherry has better conversation skills than my stepfather, and my mother doesn't love me anymore") to individual encounters and concerns ("Part of anyone can see how reasonable it is to stay at home and never leave, because you've anointed that wall, this toilet as safe, and you'd know it even if the lights never came back on"),
is a personal study of contemporary consumerism, appropriating the language of marketing and pop culture, twisting and repositioning phrases that have become clichéd. These poems render the familiar unfamiliar and question how relationships function—families, friends, lovers—in contemporary suburban Canadian life.