The Small Words in My Body

Feb 5

When Connelly was twenty-one, her The Small Words in My Body book won the Pat Lowther Award in 1991 for best poetry book of the year by a Canadian woman. While Connelly wrote many of the poems when she was in her middle and late teens, they are fully accomplished works of art. Critical reviews intimate “In successive poems, the body goes from perfection to rot to bare bones, and ‘ribs, played by wind, whistle high silver songs.’”(Dandelion Literary Review, Spring 1992). I worked on the second edition, published in 1995. The interior was set in Centaur, and I worked with an image chosen by the poet that embodied “the wheel of life, death, and rebirth” (Dandelion Literary Review, Spring 1992) for the book jacket. Canadian poet Lorna Crozier suggests, “This book will become a collector’s item so readers can see where the wonderful Karen Connelly began…” (karrenconolly.com, 2020). However, I was also overjoyed to hear Chip Kidd spoke to the publisher about liking the book jacket. That said, the word-spacing haunts me to this day.