A Bitter Mood of Clouds
by Vivian Hansen
Begin in Denmark with a strange birth, experience the life of Anne turned Arne, a hermaphrodite. Journey then to Alberta where Vivian Hansen hears her ancestors and the remarkable story of Anne. This intricately braided long poem is delicate, forceful, and unique. A Bitter Mood of Clouds is woven with supernatural voices, history, and the depth of where we come from and how those connections reach into the present.
$15.95 CAD
Additional information
| Weight | .170 kg |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 9 × 6 × .25 in |
| Page Count | 90 |
| Binding | Soft Cover |
| Year Published | 2013 |
Vivian Hansen
Vivian Hansen has published in genres of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. A Bitter Mood of Clouds was published by Frontenac House in 2013, a Long Poem that tells the story of Arne Petersen, who received gender reassignment in Denmark in 1953. Earlier work includes Angel Alley: the Victims of Jack the Ripper and Never Call it Bird: the Melodies of AIDS (Passwords Enterprises) and Leylines of My Flesh (Touchwood 2002), which chronicles the immigration experience of Danish Canadians. Vivian’s essay ‘Hundedagene and the Foxtail Phenomena” appears in Coming Here, Being Here: A Canadian Migration Anthology (Guernica 2016). Vivian teaches creative writing at Mount Royal University and the University of Calgary, as well as at the Alexandra Writers Centre. She is a member of The League of Canadian Poets and The Writers Guild of Alberta. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia.
“A Bitter Mood of Clouds is a lyric cauldron of intersex confusion and desires haunted by time and place; the skaldic ghosts and voices and spirits, narrating a changing body into existence. It’s the old language, the one we need to hear, the language of our roots and histories, the magic language. Read and listen, and it will inhabit you.”
~Brian Brett
“Vivian Hansen’s intentionesque study of gendered and geopolitical gerrymandering is witnessed through the eyes of Arne/Anne. Arne is born in a gutteral Danish outpost about to be annexed by the harsh German consonant. Trapped between the great wars, between Yggdrasil and “the slugs that write their letter and lineage”, a family honours its past and embraces the unspoken.”
~Weyman Chan