Between the Walls

Paul Vermeersch examines the forces that divide us and isolate us as individuals in both the natural and man-made worlds, at the moments when those worlds intersect, and in the places where we live and work. During a violent row between teenage boys, a starling explodes like a hand grenade. A clutter of inbred cats plays out the rise and fall of mankind in a secluded country barn. While driving his girlfriend home, a young man is forced to alter the course of his future by the sudden appearance of a plague of toads. And in the harrowing final sequence, we are taken on a tour through a fragile city verging on its own ruin. As fantastic as they are visceral, these poems shed new light on our darkest corners and take us deep between the walls, those that are thrust up before us as well as those of our own making.

Paul Vermeersch is the author of three collections of poetry: The Fat Kid, Burn, a finalist for the Gerald Lampert Award, and, most recently, Between the Walls. He is also the editor of the anthology The I.V. Lounge Reader. His poetry has been published widely in literary journals and magazines across the country. He lives in Toronto, where he is poetry editor for Insomniac Press.

About Paul Vermeersch