Retreat Diary

This double-edged little book from Margaret Christakos contains two new works that will turn on your brain and your body. Retreat Diary is an erotic, long-minded, flesh-engined prose sequence elucidating the pleasures of summer vacation, the sensory refuge of the self, and the possibilities of a prismatic gender repertory which proposes each reader consider her/his dream destination of desire. Waiting is a long poem using both procedural and lyrical compressions to invoke the cyclical tractions/tensions of mothering, sex, and deferred pleasure. Both pieces are set in Sudbury, Ontario, the author’s home town, exactly one year apart.

Margaret Christakos is a Toronto-based poet and fiction writer who has published five collections of poetry and a debut novel. Her work appears in numerous anthologies and journals. Her most recent book Excessive Love Prostheses (Coach House) won the ReLit Award in 2003. She is currently Writer in Residence at the University of Windsor, Ontario.