[sic]
Frontenac House, 2010
[sic] is my first full length book of poetry, chosen by a jury of Alice Major, bill bissett and George Elliott Clarke for the Frontenac House Dektet 2010 Series.
[sic] was shortlisted for the 2011 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award.
[sic] thus written, error mine. Sic to incite to attack, especially as a command to a dog: “Sic ‘em!” Siccing poetry on you. That’s sick, as in, awesome. Or ill and sickly. Either way, the (gendered, sexualized) body is implicated. [sic] re-writes a feminist lyric within the long shadow cast by neo-liberalism upon the city and its denizens, mis-remembers the lines and re-inscribes the labour and commerce and sexual negotiations that take place there.
ISBN: 978-1-897181-38-6
Price $15.95 CDN
Stores and ordering information
[sic] on Amazon
[sic] on Goodreads
[sic] on LibraryThing
Blurbs
Walter Benjamin did not work at Tim Hortons. Nor did he “work at the local earl’s and never leave the neighbourhood.” But who doesn’t love cities and their edges? That doesn’t mean we have to walk around like flaneurs. Most people have to drag their bodies to work and make their bodies work. What would poetry that asks “does anybody work here?” look like, how would it make and break a sentence? What city would this poetry make its capital of modernity? How would such a poetry love a “stucco shithouse?” This is to say that Nikki Reimer’s [sic] is a book that Henri Lefebvre would love because it is wild in the way he wanted cities to be.
~ Jeff Derksen
The poems in Nikki Reimer’s remarkable new book, [sic], stubbornly violate the breath line, salute drive-by aneurisms and prince charles maxi-pads, and take innocent testicles hostage as they expose the nostalgic underbelly of subverbia [sic]. “Remember if there’s smoke,” Reimer cautions, as she continually unremembers the gentrified and gendered excity. Poetry for the reactionary-challenged; before gobbling up this yummy dirt and mucus and icing-sugar die[t], you might prefer to slap on a condom, or an extra ovum.
~ Nicole Markotic´
Reviews
"A rare young poet who can channel the energy given off by her personality into things greater than just MORE personality. Reimer lets it bleed into form, into cadence, into pace. The book wants you to read it cover-to-cover in, like, 30 minutes. A tough trick to pull off."
~Vox Populism
"[sic] is a giddy, whimsical and expertly timed series of fake-outs and sucker punches. Corporatism, sexism and intellectual sloth all get brought out for questioning in a series of wild, gesticulating poems...Reimer's voice is both dexterous and savvy."
~The Globe and Mail
"Reimer’s poems are lyric but full of jarring leaps of logic, in a poetic of speed and erasure."
~ryan fitzpatrick, via 95BooksBlog
"...it’s as though she’s been quietly on the sidelines, obviously absorbing more than she has previously let on..."
~rob maclennan on rob maclennan's blog
"There's something wild and vital in the way this poem takes [sic]ness and thrusts it in your face, forces you to take a really close look. It's poetry that refuses to be therapeutic, and as such it's a bloody relief."
~Drake Alley on Drake Alley
" I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that uses the word crotch so many times."
~Meghan on 95BooksBlog
"[sic] captures restless feminism in a corporate city. Or is that restless cities in a corporate feminism? It is an immensely fun book to read: at turns sarcastic and serious, but smart all the way through."
~Poetactics on 95BooksBlog
