If I Were in a Cage I'd Reach Out for You

If I Were in a Cage I'd Reach Out for You is a collection that travels through both time and place, liminally occupying the chasm between Canadiana and Americana mythologies. These poems dwell in surreal pockets of the everyday warped landscapes of modern cities and flood into the murky basin of the intimate.

Amidst the comings and goings, there's a sincere desire to connect to others, an essential need to reach out, to redraft the narratives that make kinship radical and near. These poems are love letters to the uncomfortable, the unfathomable, and the altered geographies that define our own misshapen understandings of the world.

"With a depth of feeling for places and their connecting joys and aches, these are beautifully written poems, vivid as the morning paper, bracing as moonshine."

-David McGimpsey, author of Sitcom and Asbestos Heights

"Brims with cracking imagery and whip-smart delivery."
--The Winnipeg Free Press

"Adèle Barclay has that rare gift of making something entirely new feel familiar, every door she opens we want to swoon right in."
--Today's Book of Poetry

Prize(s): Winner Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize (2017), Short-listed ReLit Awards (2017) 

“In its exploration of intimacy, If I Were in a Cage is at its most reverent and mystical.” 

“It is a recounting of the utterly mystifying enigma of anything that dares to call itself love. Here is a rich pageant of synesthesia-inducing imagery.”

“These lines—metaphorically rich and balanced with detail and ambiguity—are representative of Adèle Barclay’s assured debut.”

“Brims with cracking imagery and whip-smart delivery.”