Kai Cheng Thom

Reading Demonic to Divine compels reflection upon motherhood, mental illness, and the links we tend to draw between them. The book compiles diary entries and autobiographical writing by Shulamis, a brilliant and charismatic woman who was once the toast of Jewish Montreal. She was also, to go by Hirsch’s commentary, a tempestuous and at least occasionally abusive mother.

Kidd has been a fixture in the Montreal artistic landscape since the 1990s, launched to spoken word stardom (such as it is) by such works as her much-acclaimed show and poetry collection Sea Peach, which toured internationally. Hyena Subpoena shows off the best of her signature poetic traits – a gift for philosophical whimsy (described by some critics as “Dr Seuss for adults”), frankly dazzling technical virtuosity in the realm of subtle rhyme and complex meter, crisp vocal performance, and a slightly bizarre yet strikingly resonant fixation with animal metaphors.

Though I have never had the pleasure of formally meeting Gender Failure authors Rae Spoon and Ivan E. Coyote, their voices and stories feel as warm and achingly familiar to me as those of my own family members.