Ontological Necessities

Written with the verve of the uninhibited artist but with a clarity of thought and expression more akin to the scientist or scholar, these poems investigate the emotional and philosophical struggles of contemporary life. Often sparked by the horrors depicted in today's news, the poems combine surrealist images with spare and lyrical language to grapple with an increasingly absurd world. The most ambitious piece in the collection is a radical, post-9/11 translation of the Anglo-Saxon elegy The Wanderer, and other poems include "Don Quixote, You Sure Can Take One Helluva Beating," "Film Version of My Hatred," "Never Held a Gun," and "The Romantic Impulse Hits the Schoolyard."

Priscila Uppal was born in Ottawa in 1974 and currently lives in Toronto. She has published five collections of poetry: How to Draw Blood From a Stone (1998), Confessions of a Fertility Expert (1999), Pretending to Die (2001), Live Coverage (2003) and Ontological Necessities (2006); all with Exile Editions. Her first novel, The Divine Economy of Salvation (2002), was published to international acclaim by Doubleday Canada, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill US, and translated into Dutch and Greek for publication by Anbos-Anthos in the Netherlands and Belgium and by Modern Times Publisher in Greece. Her poetry has been translated into Croatian, Korean, Italian, and Latvian. She holds a PhD in English Literature, and is a professor of Humanities and Coordinator of the Creative Writing Program at York University.