Vibrant Matter and Domestic Wisdom in Erin Brubacher’s In the Small Hours

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24197/ersjes.43.2022.115-132

Keywords:

materialism, vibrant matter, vitality, body, more-than-human world

Abstract

Canadian poet Erin Brubacher’s In the Small Hours is a sequence of sparse poems  which focus on the experiences and emotions underwent by the author in the aftermath of her divorce. Interspersed with memories from the past and encounters with the vitality of domestic objects, the collection shows the poetic persona making sense of her life and the world in meditative lyrics of great brevity. Drawing on Jane Bennett’s conceptualisation of “vibrant matter,” this article explores how Brubacher responds to the thing-power circulating within and around the bodies populating the Earth, whilst acknowledging a sense of communion with the more-than-human world.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Abram, David. Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology. Vintage Books, 2010.

Abram, David. “The Commonwealth of Breath.” Material Ecocriticism, edited by Serenella Iovino and Serpil Oppermann, Indiana UP, 2014, pp. 301–14.

Barad, Karen. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Duke UP, 2007.

Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Duke UP, 2010.

Bristow, Tom. The Anthropocene Lyric: An Affective Geography of Poetry, Person, Place. Palgrave Pivot, 2015.

Brubacher, Erin. In the Small Hours: Thirty-Nine Months and Seven Days. Gaspereau Press, 2016.

Brubacher, Erin, and Christine Brubaker. 7th Cousins: An Automythography. Book*hug Press, 2019.

Cayley, Kate. “Deceptively Small. In the Small Hours, Erin Brubacher.” The Fiddlehead, no. 273, 2017, pp. 129‒30.

Concord Floral. Ensemble choral piece, written by Jordan Tannahill and directed by Erin Brubacher and Cara Spooner. Theatre Center, Toronto, 2014.

Dolphijn, Rick, and Iris van der Tuin. “‘Matter feels, converses, suffers, desires, yearns and remembers’: Interview with Karen Barad.” New Materialism: Interviews and Cartographies, edited by Dolphijn and van der Tuin, Open Humanities Press, 2012, pp. 48–70.

Heidegger, Martin. Basic Writings, edited by David Farrell Krell, Routledge, 1993.

Kiinalik: These Sharp Tools. A concert and a conversation, written by Evalyn Parry, directed by Erin Brubacher, and performed by Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory. Buddies in Badtimes Theatre, Toronto, 24 Oct.‒5 Nov. 2017.

Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac, with Essays on Conservation from Round River. 1949. Ballantine Books, 1970.

White, Dave. “Poetry Night at the Woodcutter’s Blanket.” Interview with Talya Rubin and Erin Brubacher, CBC Yukon, 2016. Soundcloud, soundcloud.com/cbcyukon/poetry-night-at-the-woodcutters-blanket/.

Downloads

Published

23/11/2022

How to Cite

Martínez Serrano, L. M. “Vibrant Matter and Domestic Wisdom in Erin Brubacher’s In the Small Hours”. ES Review. Spanish Journal of English Studies, no. 43, Nov. 2022, pp. 115-32, doi:10.24197/ersjes.43.2022.115-132.

Issue

Section

Articles