Self and No Self: Poetic Undoing

 

All of us are many selves within our lifetimes, but we rely on a construct of the self that is thrust upon us at birth, shaped during youth, and reconstructed and reinvented throughout our lives. Who is this self? What is the self in relation to the other? What happens to the self during illness? What is the No Self to which Buddhists refer? The notion of the self becomes, under examination, as fluid as water.

Anne Simpson is a poet, novelist, and essayist. Her second book of poetry, Loop, won the Griffin Poetry Prize. Her second novel, Falling, was longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and won the Dartmouth Award for Fiction. Her book of essays, The Marram Grass: Poetry and Otherness, is a series of mediations on poetry, philosophy, and art. She has been a Writer in Residence at libraries and universities across the country, and has been a faculty member at the Banff Centre. She lives in northeastern Nova Scotia. She is Green College’s 15th Writer in Residence.