• Title: Hooked: seven poems
• Author: Carolyn Smart
• ISBN: 1894078691
• ISBN-13: 9781894078696
• Pages: 120
• Year: 2009
• Size: 6" × 8.75"
• Price: $19.00

An elegant and sinister collection of dramatic monologues.

Hooked is a stunning new collection of seven poems about seven famous or infamous women: Myra Hindley, Unity Mitford, Zelda Fitzgerald, Dora Carrington, Carson McCullers, Jane Bowles, and Elizabeth Smart. Each of these women was hooked on, and her life contorted by, an addiction or obsession. Here we have seven variations on the insoluble conundrum of sexuality - each in a remarkably distinct, authentic voice. 

xiii

I am conversant with my position:
middle-aged, untrained, the graduate
of half a dozen homes for the insane
I walk correctly through a world I do not understand

where has my life gone to
beside the smell of paints and
the texture of the canvas in my rough and awkward hands?
a show of paper dolls and stories starring anguish
that's my artistic life

from "Rickety Rackety"

(Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald: July 24, 1900-March 10, 1948)

Carolyn Smart brilliantly recreates seven lives of great colour. These women, all born before the end of World War II, struggle to find - or escape - their roles in a society hostile to female intelligence and ambition. Here are the agonies of the half-lived life; talents and voices that are lost or go astray in seven different ways, at a time before the greater freedoms that Feminism brought to the Western World. Whether these women have artistic success or not they are, in these astonishing poems, devastatingly articulate about their difficult lives.

"...Hooked expresses the heart of darkness with an astonishing concision and acuity... [Smart] understands loneliness in all its forms, and writes with a clarity and compassion that is powerfully affecting. In [her], these women have found a deeply feeling and deeply attentive witness." - Anne Michaels

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Carolyn Smart reads from the new book on YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izpmC0YEclw - Carolyn Smart reads Written on the Flesh [Myra Hindley] at the 49th Parallel Reading, AWP Conference Chicago, February 14, 2009. 

Carolyn Smart reads Rickety Rackety from her book "HOOKED" at The Book Shop in Tamworth Ontario...Filmed by Barry Lovegrove..  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geBTlygDBx4  July 27, 2009.   And part two http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVOV51ItfrQ&feature=related

"Must Read Interview" - An Interview with Carolyn Smart - with Alessandro Porco - March 10, 2009 http://www.openbooktoronto.com/news/must_read_interview_carolyn_smart_with_alessandro_porco

HOOKED IN HOUSE - a dramatic presentation of Hooked, seven poems by Carolyn Smart -  Hooked in house - Wine and dine with seven unforgettable women.

One actress.. Seven formidable women. Seven dishes. All served up in a home. This is HOOKED IN HOUSE. Seven dramatic monologues by Carolyn Smart, performed by Nicky Guadagni alongside the exquisite food offerings of Sandy Balcovske.

Hooked by Carolyn Smart is a stunning new collection of seven poems about seven famous or infamous women: Myra Hindley, Unity Mitford, Zelda Fitzgerald, Dora Carrington, Carson McCullers, Jane Bowles, and Elizabeth Smart.

For more details, see www.hookedinhouse.com 

Interview with Carolyn Smart by Tracy Hamon, March 27, 2009 http://thamon.wordpress.com/2009/03/27/interview-with-carolyn-smart/

National Post is running a series about poetry during April which is National Poetry Month.  Carolyn Smart was the first interviewee on April 1^st.  http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/afterword/archive/2009/04/01/the-napomo-questionnaire-carolyn-smart.aspx

"Love is love, and hard enough to find" - a response to Carolyn Smart's Hooked by Ruth Roach Pierson for Influency: A Poetry Salon

For full article, go to http://www.brickbooks.ca/?p=1365 

WHY I WROTE HOOKED: CAROLYN SMART EXPLAINS THE ORIGINS OF HER BOOK

For the full article, go to http://www.brickbooks.ca/?p=1484