A sometimes satirical reflection on hope in a time of hopelessness, the poems in
I Dreamed I Was an Afterthought
use stubborn humour to grapple with the anxiety of moving forward during late capitalism. While many of the poems are set in Newfoundland, the book also echoes the universal experience of loss, leaving, returns, and never being able to return. The first section of the manuscript, titled “Some Disasters,” introduces real and imagined catastrophes. The St. Lawrence tidal wave, the history of resettlement, and the Muskrat Falls debacle stand next to poems that live in an imagined future where the capelin refuse to roll and snow refuses to fall. The second section is titled “I dreamed I was an afterthought.” Here, the eclectic poems turn to a more personal perspective of place, my struggles with mental illness, and a feminist exploration of familial relationships. In "Of No Returns," movement through time and space is tinged with the same lurking fear of irreversibility, a fear which has been amplified during the pandemic. There is a yearning for the “before times,” a time which may or may not exist.