Description
In the arena, she shot cigarettes and coins
from her trusting husband’s hand. Some women
wished she would miss.
—from “Little Sure Shot”
Kat Cameron’s poetry illuminates the unsung perspectives of the women of the West, creating a compelling narrative that reflects the poet’s own struggles with sorrow. She conjures ghosts and weaves together insights on loss, memory, and the impacts of boom and bust.
Awards
- Short-listed, Stephan G. Stephanson Award for Poetry, Writers Guild of Alberta 2021
- Winner, High Plains Book Awards 2021
Reviews
"The historical West was lawless and degenerate.... Kat Cameron is haunted by the experiences of those least among us, commoners of the Western prairies, especially women, and her searing work will not let us forget their grief."
- Matt Sutherland, Foreword Magazine, July / August 2020
"[Cameron elucidates] aspects of living in Alberta: the boom-bust madnesses, the burns and floods, the Timmy Ho rednecks, the city scavengers and the sweet cricket fields.... Cameron’s poems simmer with a quiet ire amid their gentle songs." [Full review at https://crowgirl11.wordpress.com/2020/03/25/kat-camerons-ghosts-still-linger-u-of-a-press-and-kim-goldbergs-devolution-caitlin-press/]
- Catherine Owen
"From prairie history to cultural considerations such as the Edmonton Oilers and Alberta bumper stickers, Cameron’s poems examine what occurs when life gets caught up against external forces, attempting to articulate the ghosts of what has been lost, and what may have been set aside, writing out a confluence of women from Alberta to Wyoming, through boom and bust, through hope and loss and sadness and grief. These are characters that fight to remain standing, something that, at times, is either all or more than they are capable of." [Full review at https://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2020/08/kit-cameron-ghosts-still-linger.html]
- rob mclennan