Unstable Neighbourhood Rabbit

Book excerpt: Finalist, League of Canadian Poets’ Gerald Lampert Memorial Award Oneiric, fabulist, hilarious, surreal. No single term seems to sufficiently contain Mikko Harvey’s delightful, cheeky, absurdist, inimitable debut collection. A bomb and a raindrop make small talk as they fall through the air; a trip to the phlebotomist evolves into a nightmarish party; a boy finds himself turning into a piano key. Reading Unstable Neighbourhood Rabbit is like spending the day at the strangest amusement park you've ever seen. At first the rides appear familiar, then you realize they possess the power to not merely thrill and terrify, but also to destabilize your very notion of “amusement.” These poems veer sharply away from what’s normally expected from poetry, landing readers instead in that awkward, lonely, interior space where we may be most ourselves. Along with beauty and humour, there is menace here, the threat of disfigurement and death around every turn. But somehow, Harvey manages to make that menace, too, a place of wonder.