Barebacked With Rain

The poetic prodigy is usually a pathological phenomenon. We may be grateful for the work (which , as in Rimbaud’s case, can turn a whole culture upon its head) but the “Divine afflatus”, the Pentecostal speaking-in-tongues, the hormonal hotline to the subconscious in most adolescent discoveries, is too often a veneer upon alienation, self absorption, even madness. Canada has produced Emile Nelligan and Susan Musgrave, and in each case the public myth of the writer has intruded upon the work itself. Nadine Shelly will be spared such mistreatment, because her work in no way invites it.

Barebacked with Rain was the most exciting first book of poems to appear in this country in years. Its voice is definite, haunting and sane. Relationships, dreams and speculations are set out in language that is visionary and precise, in rhythms that are joyful and controlled, and with a gentleness and wit that temper the indignation this world provokes in the writer.

Nadine Shelly was born in Papua New Guinea, and raised in Northern Saskatchewan. She now lives on Salt Spring Island, B.C. She is 16 years old as Barebacked with Rain goes to press.