Latent Heat

"Catherine Hunter grew up in Winnipeg, where she listened well to the rhythm and music of the streets, supermarkets and malls. Her well-attuned ear captures this rhythm and music. In Latent Heat, she plays with it until it pirouettes onto the page in unexpected, yet hauntingly appropriate and beautiful images. Latent Heat is a work of exceptional poetic inspiration and ability. Hunter combines the talent and technique of the storyteller with the finely chiselled images of the poet. Lovers of poetry will sink into the cool, clear waters of Hunter’s vision, never once asking to come up for air. But those who aren’t will also find much to enjoy. Meaning here is not buried under mountains of words. It floats on the surface of magnificently flowing lines."— The Winnipeg Free Press "Catherine Hunter’s Latent Heat is a treat for anyone interested in a good thoughtful read of good, thoughtful, contemporary poetry. The book is a clear reflection of her compulsion to be fresh and arresting in her poetry. But Catherine Hunter is no poet-anarchist, simply and self-indulgently letting form find its own way to reflect the content of her work. Her poems do not evolve organically out of whatever verbal sculpture inherent in the sense and passion of her words. There is construction, shape, invention, and an adaptation of words, sentiment, and meaning. The result is a satisfying and coherent vessel for the expression of her truths. Her poetry is a rough caress of words; palm, fingers, tips, running lightly over the erect down on our skin, the caressing hand thickened with effort, self-denial, and disappointment. A submissive eroticism blended with an unyielding vision of the unreasonableness of the world."—Zygote "A major task of any poet is to make the absent present, luring "airy nothingness" with language. Latent Heat by Catherine Hunter, attempts to do just that. I am reminded of the strange distinction Aldous Huxley made between imagination, what he called "the story-telling faculty," and vision, seeing past sensation, what he thought the poet's work primarily to be. These opposites are often fused in Hunter who spins narratives throughout the book, not only in the four sequential pieces opening the work, but also in the single lyrics that conclude the book, yet almost always she is looking for "illusory, irresistible moments" when "the world seems to give up / its hiddenness." At times like this the sign invokes the signified: "an ant crawling over the drawing / of an ant I’ve made upon the page." Such faith is rare these days, but Hunter clearly writes with visionary aspirations. Latent Heat reveals a poet who is not afraid to speak of love and death, the great experiences, with a personal imagination, and as such she is unusual today."—The Antigonish Review