Drolleries

“Cassidy McFadzean’s Drolleries evokes magic and vivid detail . . . Rarely does a poetry collection do such a cogent job of combining world-building and specifics. In Drolleries, McFadzean comes into her own as a metaphor maker. . . . A must-have for its technical skill and lyrical brevity.” —Quill & Quire

“There’s a lushness in Drolleries, an opulence; even the shortest lyrical pieces are dense with detail. Sometimes the collection’s tone turns nearly documentary, illuminating minutiae with an art historian’s fervor. If McFadzean’s catalogues and descriptions occasionally veer toward the extravagant, it’s not due to a lack of self-control (the poems are, in fact, admirably precise and restrained). Rather, McFadzean seems to want to demonstrate the difficulty of packing the too-much-ness of it all—the feelings, the grief, the regret, the terrible beauty—into easily digestible pieces. The poems strain at their seams, larger than life, their beasts threatening escape. . . . a collection to read many times over.” —Canadian Notes and Queries