Imagined Sons (Seren Books, 2014)

I'm delighted to announce that Seren Books, which did such an impressive job with my first collection, The Tethers, will be publishing my third book of poetry, Imagined Sons. This is my first strongly thematic work, exploring a birthmother's consciousness through two kinds of poems: Imagined Sons, prose poems where the birthmother encounters the son in different guises once he's come of age (baker, hotel clerk, surfer, black olive, etc.) and catechisms, where the same recurring question provokes different answers over time.

I first completed a draft of the manuscript in 2006 and produced a pamphlet manuscript from it for Oystercatcher Press in 2009, The Son, which was named the Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice for that quarter. Poems in the book have appeared or are forthcoming in Barrow Street, The Iowa Review, Long Poem Magazine, New Walk, New Welsh Review, PN Review, The Republic of Letters and The Times Literary Supplement.

Reviews of The Son have been wonderfully heartening, with Peter Riley describing it as "quite startling--a serious work about loss through a terrific play of imaginative resource." David Morley wrote in Poetry Review: "Carrie Etter's sparkling, serious beating-out of prose poetry and catechism continues in a finely judged sequence, grieving and honouring and surprising on every page. 'It is time' (Etter quotes Celan) 'the stone made an effort to flower'. And so this fine book, its respect, sadness and subject." 

Over the next few days, I'll be giving the manuscript its probably hundredth read and searching for potential images for the book's cover. A great way to spend what's forecast as a rainy weekend!