Skinny Girls

Lesley-Anne Bourne

6 X 9 inches, 122 pages

Penumbra Press Poetry Series, No. 31

ALTHOUGH HERS IS A PERSONAL AND SOMETIMES EVEN INTIMATE VOICE, we are driven not as voyeurs to eavesdrop on her world but as sympathizers to share her moments of "truth" discovered. Lesley-Anne Bourne follows up on the success of Stories of Pears, with this, her second volume of poetry, Skinny Girls. As the title suggests, those moments of "truth" are particularly evident in the section of poems about the pain and anguish of anorexia.

ten years her father's seen her die
almost. He still asks why
did she starve so long?
How? Under the hospital window
he thought she couldn't hear

When can I trust
her again? The nights
he'd sign her out for baseball
games in Lee Park, returning
at ten to the fourth floor

as if normal. His heart
breaking each time they passed
icecream stands. Or lunch hours
he walked from the office
to watch her not eat. In the past

ten years she's come back
a pound at a time.
He pretends not to count.
Playing catch in the yard
when she visits, they throw

fast balls and curves
without effort or hurting
each other that bad.

—In the Past

Lesley-Anne Bourne

Author

Now living in Charlottetown, PEI, where she teaches at the University of Prince Edward Island, Lesley-Anne Bourne grew up in North Bay, Ontario. She holds an honours Bachelor of Arts Degree in Creative Writing as well as a Masters Degree in Fine Arts. She has attended the Banff Centre for the Arts, and has been awarded both the Bliss Carman Award (1986) and the Air Nova Poetry Award (1990). She also received the Air Canada Award (1994) administered by the Canadian Author's Association, for the most promising Canadian writer under thirty.