tend by Kate Hargreaves

Visceral and playful, tend reflects the intimate awkwardness of modern life. Hargreaves’ latest collection explores feelings of being distanced from loved ones, physically and emotionally; striving to be better (at chores, at intimacy); and tending to the things that fracture.

These poems are anchored in the body, straining the edges of spaces that bodies and language inhabit: between sealing in and digging out; restlessness and isolation; memory and planning for the future; gaps in texts and reiterations. tend is an immersive work, as validating as it is illuminating.

Praise for tend:

“These poems are an elegant romp through tangled city gardens and teeming waste bins of memory and human consciousness. The domestic realm is a wilderness, a trash heap, a broken string of pearls. All at once, this beautiful book is the milky crystal on the green chain, the broken eggshell in your compost, the lost slipper through a rotten board. tend takes your hand.” —Shannon Bramer, author of Precious Energy

“Clever and controlled, tend grounds you in the gross and astounding musculature of language, and doesn’t skimp on the viscera. The poems in this collection gather and sing to the ways in which we tend to ourselves, to the world, and to others—and how so often these messy, generous acts bleed together. Through rituals, commands, instructions, and advice, Hargreaves expertly engages a variety of tactics and wields a distinct yet collective lyrical voice with a scalpel-like precision. I felt like I lived in the body of every poem, and every poem lived in the specific, chaotic detritus of the world.” —Domenica Martinello, author of All Day I Dream About Sirens

“tend is a master class in poetic restraint. Hargreaves’ brilliance lies in her ability to cleave poems to their core, to ‘strip words/like veins from a leg/or bones from a fish.’ She is ruthless in her delivery—stacks lines together like kindling for a fire, drops a lit match and walks away, leaving the reader to smoulder.” —Adrienne Gruber, author of Q & A

“tend is an apiary of lists buzzing with to-dos that lilt and tilt. Hargreaves skillfully merges a miscellany of terms and quicksilver minutes into a work of persistence. Day-to-day knickknacks slip next to gentle warnings and medical debris. A work full of mettle.” —Christine McNair, author of Charm

Press Coverage:

Most Anticipated: Our Shelf 2022 Fall Poetry Preview —49th Shelf

48 Canadian poetry collections to watch for in fall 2022 —CBC Books

“tend is an optimistic and occasionally joyful collection of dark complexities, centred around care, from self-care to gardening, and the ways in which we wish to interact with the wonderfully complex and convoluted worlds of nature, other humans, poems and ourselves. Hargreaves utilizes rhythm throughout the poems assembled here that is quite interesting, allowing a breathless, halting or otherwise propulsive patter to further her poems as much as anything involving language, meaning or purpose.” —rob mclennan, periodicities : a journal of poetry and poetics

Cozy Fest: Kate Hargreaves —All Lit Up

Our Favourite Book Covers of 2022 —Hamilton Review of Books

A ‘best of’ list of 2022 Canadian poetry books —rob mclennan, Dusie

The Kate Hargreaves Interview —The Miramichi Reader

“Much of the care expressed is aspirational rather than actualized — a tendency rather than a perfect practice — but these are poems that gaze toward futures: of the self, of public transit, of bumblebees.” —Jade Wallace, Carousel Magazine

An Interview with Kate Hargreaves, author of tend —All Write in Sin City podcast

“Tend showcases Hargreaves’ keen observation of the world around her as she collects images—the minutiae of everyday living—in a poetic inventory that speaks of the passage of time, mortality, isolation, and our own fragility.” —Kim Fahner, periodicities

“The concise language of tend also offers, in its spare approach and precise layout on the page, silence. From the silences between words, lines and poems, emerges a thoughtful commentary on grief, loneliness and the often-hidden perils of contemporary North American life… With this offering and an attendant expectation that the reader will bring themselves to the page with the same care and clear-eyed view as the poet, there is an opportunity to find and honour diverse forms of inclusion. Such an open hand ought not to be ignored.” —Susan Wismer, The Miramichi Reader

“This small book of poems is thought provoking, with little moments of time captured in words.” —Caprice Hogg, Cloud Lake Literary

Kate Hargreaves is the author of the poetry collection, Leak, as well as Jammer Star, a roller derby novel for young readers, and Talking Derby, a book of prose vignettes. She holds an MA in English and Creative Writing from the University of Windsor, where she received the Governor General’s Gold Medal in Graduate Studies. Her work has appeared in literary journals across Canada, the US, and the UK. As a book designer for numerous Canadian presses, Hargreaves has received honours from the Alcuin Society for Excellence in Book Design, the CBC Bookie Awards, and the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. She grew up in Amherstburg, Ontario, and lives and works in Windsor.