Winner of the 2002 Dorothy Livesay Award for Poetry (BC Book Prizes), shortlisted for the 2002 Griffin Poetry Prize, the 2002 Gerald Lampert Award for first book and longlisted for the 2002 ReLit Awards.

Karen Solie takes risks with perception and language, risks that pay off in such startling ways that it’s hard to believe this is a first book. Short Haul Engine is one great twist of fate and fury after another. The writing is clear, striking and open to all sorts of possibilities. Even at their most playful, these poems dive much deeper than initially expected. There’s a remarkably dark sense of humour at work here, but tempered with a haunting vulnerability that makes even the sharpest lines tremble.

from “Signs Taken for Wonders”

… Too delicate for these dog-days,
small, clover-blonde,
my sister sews indoors.
I ask her to fashion me
into something nice, ivory silk.
I am a big girl, sunburnt
skin like raw meat, sweating
two pews in front of the Blessed Virgin….