Rock Creek Blues
Coteau Books / 30 November 2011

Rock Creek Blues by Thelma Poirier Published by Coteau Books Review by Kris Brandhagen $16.95 CAD ISBN 13: 9781550504552 While reading Rock Creek Blues a narrative began to unfold, during which I couldn’t count the number of times I felt my eyebrows raise. I was impressed by the sheer subtle courage of Poirier. This book is an exploration of death, providing the spectrum of the food chain and thickly sauced with the tart flavor of human acceptance and/or conflict about it; a study of harmony and discord spanning Rock Creek, Saskatchewan and New Orleans, Louisiana. Poirier’s writing is versatile and organic, in a way that is neither arrogant nor assuming-A poet and storyteller in a truly dramatic way. There was suspense that I didn’t even know was building at first. To expand on that, it is like the story developed a wider and wider range as it went along like someone I didn’t even know was a minstrel walked up to me: “Want to hear a joke?” And here I am forty-five minutes later, I’m still listening, rapt, to the dynamic voice changes, and can’t wait for the end, in the very best way, because I feel a desire to…