"Books, Bees and Balls: Beating the Tormentors” by new faculty member Alexandra Oliver, this week on the Stonecoast Faculty Blog

by Alexandra Oliver

On September 10, 2013, the Canadian press Biblioasis will be bringing out my second full-length book of poems, Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway. The title comes from a poem of the same name, in which I recall meeting, as an adult, an elementary school bully in the supermarket.

Over the past twenty years, I have run into other members of the same gang at parties, reunions, and weddings. One, whom I encountered in a university coffee bar in 2003, died last year after a terrible illness. I can’t say I was happy about it. Life had dealt her a bad hand.

But before I talk about tormentors, I want to talk about books and how I came to make this one.

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