Tell Them It Was Mozart by Angeline Schellenberg

Through public judgments, detouring dreams and unspoken prayers, Tell Them It Was Mozart, Angeline Schellenberg’s debut collection, traces both a slow bonding and the emergence of a defiant humour. This is a book that keens and cherishes, a work full of the earthiness and transcendence of mother-love. One of the pleasures of this collection is its playful range of forms: there are erasure poems, prose poems, lists, found poems, laments, odes, monologues and dialogues in the voices of the children, even an oulipo that deconstructs the DSM definition of autism. From a newborn “glossed and quivering” to a child conquering the fear of strange toilets, Tell Them It Was Mozart is bracing in its honesty, healing in its jubilance.

Praise for Tell Them It Was Mozart:

“By turns, Angeline Schellenberg’s words are blunt, musical, unflinching, transcendent. Her speaker raises two children on the autism spectrum, but she is never a martyr, never a victim, never a saint. Schellenberg has drawn a woman who turns the experience inside out—finding its humour, its turbulence, and ultimately, its joy.” — Kimmy Beach

“Tell Them it Was Mozart is a provocative collection of culturally rich, alluring poetry that bravely reveals the flakey, frightening, forlorn, funny, fantastic gusts of life with autism. What a splendid read it is.” — Liane Holliday Willey, author of Pretending to be Normal: Living With Asperger’s Syndrome

Press Coverage:

Our Zippered Selves — The Fiddlehead

The House is on Fire — Canadian Literature