A collection of poetry that documents the sorts of interruptions that plague the lives of artists and writers. It weaves together the imagery of searching and the vagaries of language into a whole cloth. It reflects the dynamic between the known and the unknown.
The Soft Signature is a place where multiple meanings are generated and evoked through the disruption of simple linear narrative and lyric sensibility. For Lise Downe, language is not simply “a means to an end.” Instead, its instability and unpredictability are encouraged and given a free the effect is the creation of a “nowhere,” or alternate reality, that is as Canadian as Canada itself. In breathtaking poems like “Arranged Tributaries,” Downe proves herself the consummate literary the imagination’s cartographer, geologist, meteorologist, and historian. Ultimately, The Soft Signature documents a natural history of culture and communication, momentarily stabilizing the perpetually shifting sands upon which all such institutions are built.
Exploring the intersection of poetry and detective fiction, the poems in this collection present a unique approach to uncovering clues and discerning truth from illusion. Readers are invited to navigate through layers of meaning, distinguishing the essential from the superfluous in a world where certainty is elusive. The work reflects the complexities of daily life, emphasizing the challenge of finding direction amidst conflicting evidence.