Abstract
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2013 OTTAWA BOOK AWARDSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2013 ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN AWARDSHORTLISTED FOR THE 2013 RELIT AWARDConflict interweaves ghosts, bad communication, the uncanny and the archival, to create a collection of poems that break down remembrance into abandoned historic markers, jet fuel, keening, or teeth. What you are given (this is a gift) is an insistent refusal to silence or shift. In exchange, the reader must face the impossibility of erasure, a gritty resistance to mourn a fight. Conflict is a collection of red balloons that intersplices and interweaves through various forms of conflict that occur in language, motion, architecture, emotions; between individuals, systems, and mechanical silences.