Aubade edited by E. Alex Pierce ISBN: 978-1-926448-26-8 206 pages Poetry and Prose from Nova Scotia writers $19.95 A singular anthology featuring the work of Nova Scotia poets and writers inspired by the aubade: originally a medieval dawn song expressing the regret of lovers parting at daybreak, the aubade is a poem type that has no fixed metrical form, thus allowing prose writers to adopt its elements—daybreak, parting, a watchman, a window, self-realization, loss and reconciliation—and re-form them into new expression. Through lyric and prose poetry, drama, short story, non-fiction and essay, Nova Scotia writers re-envision, in the words of Mi’kmaw poet shalan joudry, “the return of the Wabana’ki light”. From Carol Bruneau’s lovers lost in confusion over “ship’s time” and Alexander MacLeod’s pair keeping watch in pre-dawn light at their baby’s hospital room, to Basma Kavanagh’s meditation on the “hour of first sight”, these bold writers have expanded and redefined this archetypal lyric. E. Alex Pierce is the author of Vox Humana, published by Brick Books (2011), and of To float, to drown, to close up, to open – forthcoming from University of Alberta Press in Spring, 2019. Her work has been widely anthologized, notably in The Best Canadian Poetry in English (Tightrope, 2008), and published in literary journals in Canada and the US. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College, NC, and for ten years taught creative writing (playwriting, poetry and poetics) at Cape Breton University. She is Senior Editor at Boularderie Island Press.