Lookin’ For Joy

When lookin’ for joy amidst uncertainty, find in these poems a celebration of the audacity that stares down the status quo, and refuses the shame it demands of the survivor.

With a singular range that inspires, this collection energizes her earlier lyrical narrative with the sass and verve of spoken word, and the slap of slam.

In 2017, Beth Goobie started attending Tonight It’s Poetry, a weekly open mike event in Saskatoon. As dreaded, at her first poetry slam, she came in last. But rage can inspire.

Previous poetry praise:

“Her long lines nearly spill off the page, reaching to the margins with an insistence, an energetic arcing, that pulls poetry towards prose, prose towards poetry.” —Letters in Canada

“I know of no young writer in Canada capable of crafting subtle imagery and delicate phrasing to compare with that found in Goobie’s arresting poetry… Goobie’s work is…starkly, almost self-consciously, original, strewn here and there with the telling detritus (much of it human) of modern popular culture.” —The Globe and Mail

Beth Goobie’s first collection of poetry, Scars of Light, won the 1994 Pat Lowther Award. She is the author of 26 books, including Before Wings (CLA Award, Saskatchewan YA Book Award), The Lottery, The Pain Eater (Snow Willow Award, Saskatchewan YA Book Award), and The First Principles of Dreaming. In 2020, she tied for second in Tonight It’s Poetry’s annual Saskatoon spoken word championship. She was the $5,000 winner in the Established Writer category of the Carter V. Cooper Short Fiction Award (2021).