Available September 2002 ISBN 0-921870-98-1 BISAC:  POE005000 6 X 9 92 pp $13.95 pb Poetry, Women's Studies

Adultery with its pleasure, pain and outrage! No one writes the poetry of adultery as does Nancy Holmes. For her guide, she takes the poet Ovid who schools her in his tender cynicism and teaches her the art of love. When she capitulates to the temptations of bad love, the poems themselves speak up and scold her into behaving properly (or improperly). When she pauses to consider her wayward ways or guilty conscience, the poems remind her that poetry is where wild abandon meets control, that her life and follies are the fuel for art. "Shut up and make love, you crazy fool," they shout. Ultimately she is forced into the most rigid poetic straightjacket of all - the sonnet - where she learns her lessons well. As Holmes shows, no matter how ridiculously one behaves or how poorly one chooses, the adventure of lust and love is one of the deepest pleasures of our adult life. Through love we are transformed into sensual slaves, life's clowns and criminals, but these roles must be embraced or we miss out on one of the great experiences of life. The spirt of Ovid hovers over these wry, sad and comic poems, reminding us that it was always thus, for men and women, both.

"The Adultery Poems is a wonderful lusty and sophisticated book! With the lubriciousness of a female Ovid, Holmes makes love to language, each poem polished and slicked with her tongue until it gleams. This is a book to take to bed, to read under the covers. 'Open me,' it says, and you must." - Lorna Crozier

Nancy Holmes was born in Edmonton, went to school in Toronto and learned her craft at the University of Calgary under Christopher Wiseman and W.P. Kinsella. She has published two books of poetry: Down to the Golden Chersonese: Victorian Lady Travellers (Sono Nis, 1991) and Valancy and the New World (Kalamalka Press, 1988). She now makes her home with her husband and three teenage sons in Summerland, BC, where she teaches at Okanagan University College.