Love Will Burst Into a Thousand Shapes

Art, children, marriage, breaking, rejoicing. Love is a many-branched tree and in Hamilton's newest poetry collection, her third, it's autumn or winter, the winds are kicking up and branches are flying everywhere - bursting into a thousand shapes. Or maybe it's Hamilton's heart that explodes into many dimensions. Tender, furious, grief-stricken, witty, urbane, elegiac, political, personal, erotic - these poems are all those things. Hamilton can't stop loving big no matter how chancy itis. All these shapes lend raw material for a poem: Mothers lose their babies. A boy loses his leg to war. A girl hides from serial killer Richard Speck. A virgin gets pregnant. A partner mourns a death at Walkerton. Women tumble into love, celebratory and foolhardy. Frank and elemntal, LOVE WILL BURST INTO A THOUSAND SHAPES reminds us that life is worth everything we can throw at it. "LOVE WILL BURST INTO A THOUSAND SHAPES is jazzy and engaging. Hamilton proves herself to be a real wordsmith, with a trickster's soul and a heart as big as New Mexico. The poems are enlightening, risky, rough, funny as hell, and ultimately very moving." - Barry Dempster

Jane Eaton Hamilton Jane Eaton Hamilton is the author of seven books of fiction and poetry. Her book JULY NIGHTS was shortlisted for the BC Book Prizes and her book HUNGER was shortlisted for the Ferro-Grumley Award. BODY RAIN, her first book of poetry, was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Award, and her chapbook, GOING SANTA FE, won the League of Canadian Poets Poetry Chapbook Award. A pseudonymous memoir was on the GUARDIAN'S Best of the Year list and was a SUNDAY TIMES bestseller. She has been included in the JOURNEY PRIZE ANTHOLOGY and BEST CANADIAN SHORT STORIES, and has been cited in BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES. She has won many prizes for her short fiction, including, twice, the Prism International short fiction contest, and first prize in the CBC Literary Awards. She has been published in the NEW YORK TIMES, SEVENTEEN magazine, SALON, NUMERO CINQ, MACLEANS, the GLOBE AND MAIL, the MISSOURI REVIEW, the ALASKA QUARTERLY REVIEW and many other places. She has been a recipient of arts awards from the BC Arts Council and the Canada Council. Jane is also a photographer and visual artist and was a litigant in Canada's same-sex marriage case. She lives in Vancouver.