Join Susan Haldane as she reads from her new book of poetry, Hard Bargain Road
Hard Bargain Road is a collection of poetry published in 2021 by Gaspereau Press.
Susan Haldane offers an intimate view of contemporary life in a rural community. Foregoing typical bucolic or bleak tropes of rural life, her poems find focus in the complex, incessant negotiations involved in farming’s ever-shifting relationship with landscape, livestock, seasons, weather, history and neighbours. Direct, plain spoken, this collection recalls the frank wistful and stubborn persistence of a bluegrass hymn, a song for a community that will not be defined from without. “If it surprises you to hear / a farmer speak of love,” writes Haldane, “then / you’ve had the wrong meaning all along.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SUSAN HALDANE lives with her husband on a farm near the northern boundary of Ontario’s Algonquin Park. Her writing has appeared in a number of Canadian journals and anthologies and was included in Best Canadian Poetry 2020. Her chapbook Picking Stones was published by Gaspereau Press in 2018.
