Villa Negativa: A Memoir in Verse, Paperback

With less content in my life
I am infinitely more content

Against the backdrop of a sibling's death, an eating disorder, and a few very dismal dating relationships, Villa Negativa looks for laughter behind darkness: the intruder who politely removes her shoes, the fabricator whose closest relationship is with fibreglass, the anorexic who sends the Diet Coke back because it tastes too good. Meditative and mischievous, confessional and philosophical, sincere and sly by turns, Sharon McCartney's seventh collection articulates an essential truth of self-knowledge--that "to perceive something, we have to be able / to stand away from it."

About author(s):

Villa Negativa is Sharon McCartney's seventh volume of poetry. Her previous books include Metanoia (2016, Biblioasis), Hard Ass (2013, Palimpsest), For and Against (2010, Goose Lane Editions), The Love Song of Laura Ingalls Wilder (2007, Nightwood Editions), Karenin Sings the Blues (2003, Goose Lane Editions) and Under the Abdominal Wall (1999, Anvil Press). Sharon's poems have been included in several editions of The Best Canadian Poetry in English. She has an MFA from the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop and an LL.B. from the University of Victoria and currently lives in Edmonton, Alberta.