This Kind of Thinking Does No Good
This Kind of Thinking Does No Good is the third full-length poetry collection by Nova Scotia poet Alison Smith. Published by Gaspereau Press in the spring of 2018, the book is an intelligent, thoughtful, and funny consideration of many overlooked areas, including life in rural Nova Scotia.
From the publisher’s website (gaspereau.com):
What will surprise you about Alison Smith’s poems is the tenaciousness that lies beneath their grace and wit, their unwillingness to concede the bittersweet complexity of human experience to either gross reduction or cowed silence. Exploring the domestic epics of relationships, childbirth, and parenting, as well as societal issues like patriarchy and justice, Smith discovers that often “we barely know how feelings think.” But if our stories sometimes elude us—like a skipping rope, where one end is “held slack / by skeptics, the other turned too fast”—Smith’s poems jump in and find expression’s rhythm.
“This Kind of Thinking Does No Good has frank treatment of narratives, skillfully interwoven in ways both fluid and unexpected – wonderfully jarring at times.”
WFNS Programming & Membership Officer Annick MacAskill administers all aspects of membership and oversees WFNS programs including Nova Writes Awards, workshops, and professional development sessions. She is also a poet and critic. Her poems have appeared in journals and anthologies across Canada and abroad, including Best Canadian Poetry 2019, Canadian Notes & Queries, The Fiddlehead, Arc Poetry Magazine, and The Stinging Fly. Her reviews have appeared in national and international publications including The Antigonish Review, Room Magazine, and PANK. MacAskill’s debut collection, No Meeting Without Body (Gaspereau Press, 2018), was selected as a finalist for the JM Abraham Poetry Award and the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Her second collection will appear with Gaspereau this spring.
About the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia:
Established in 1975, the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) is a not-for-profit organization that works to maintain a supportive and vibrant writing community in Nova Scotia. The WFNS values the diversity of writers in all regions of Nova Scotia and aims to build community across the province. The WFNS also aims to represent the interests of writers to a variety of agencies and government departments, and to lobby on behalf of writers. The WFNS has approximately 500 active members who are writers at all stages of their careers. The WFNS administers programs such as Writers in the Schools (WITS) and the Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program, and awards including the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, the Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award, and the JM Abraham Poetry Award.
