From the Afterword…
In October 2010, just as I was leaving to drive to Edmonton with Kathleen Wall to read at Audrey’s Books, I checked my mailbox. In it was an envelope from mentor Robert Kroetsch. Inside was a copy of his chapbook, All the Dead Husbands.
He’d read and blurbed my novel, Memoir of a Good Death, and the chapbook title was a joke, a play on the metaphorically dead husbands (5) of my Rhegan Flett character. I took his letter and the chapbook with me. Carried them from Calgary to Edmonton, then out to B.C. for readings and signings for Memoir. I found myself responding to the poems in Husbands, and later was asked by Robert to send him a copy. The joking continued. My chapbook, Blame It On The Bees was the result. Bees includes 13 responses each numbered for Robert’s originals.
From time to time I envisioned putting the 26 short poems together in one chapbook for purely sentimental reasons. Now, with the help of designer and Administrative Director for the League of Canadian Poets, Nicole Brewer, they are. Reprinted in Songbook with the kind permission of the Literary Estate of Robert Kroetsch.
To read the poems in the original chapbooks, go to my Poetry page.