HOT SUMMER NIGHT BY JOCELYNE DUBOIS

Sky of Ink Press’ second chapbook production is Hot Summer Night by Jocelyne Dubois.

Jocelyne Dubois’ poetry is characterized by limpid and at times searing clarity. This collection represents a particularly courageous narration: Jocelyne suffers from bipolar disorder, and in these poems she takes us on a harrowing journey through breakdown, hospitalization and recovery.

Here, as an example of her writing, is the title poem:

HOT SUMMER NIGHT

A jazz beat plays through a speaker
in the background. I hear the music
from my balcony while I watch fireworks
blazing in the sky. The moon is full,
a few grey clouds around the moon, dancing.
I see your hair and eyes on a cloud,
through my kitchen window, between my bed
sheets. Your scent, skin colour, your
unshaven, shaven beard – chemistry spells
perfect. My body perspires. I desire.

I remember when we remained motionless,
our faces scarcely touching, without
a word, for a long time and then you touched
my pores, my heart. When I touched
you, you stayed on the palm of my hands.
I looked at my hands and thought that you
were perfect.

I cannot wash off what is perfect, what
shines like crystal, something more than
wind, stronger than rain, more solid than
stone.

Jocelyne Dubois’ poetry has appeared in Canadian Woman Studies/les cahiers de la femme (York University). Her fiction has been published in The Dalhousie Review, Exile, Transition, and Carte Blanche. Jocelyne has recently discovered a passion for painting. She lives in Montreal, and is currently working on a novel.

SKY OF INK PRESS was founded with the express purpose of featuring talented and unpublished poets in finely crafted chapbooks. The poetry editors are Raphael Bendahan and Brian Campbell. E-Mail: beedeecee@videotron.ca

Hot Summer Night is available for $12 Canadian or American including postage: write beedeecee@videotron.ca

Publishing details: Hot Summer Night is printed in an edition of 100 copies on high-quality natural paper with a cardstock orange cover. The chapbook is 35 pages long and contains 28 poems. Cover illustration by the author. Book dimensions: 8 1/2" by 7” (legal-sized folded in half).