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Hamilton Arts & Letters
In Summer 2015, Talonbooks worked with Judith Fitzgerald to publish Impeccable Regret, her final collection of poems. Our work together was fuelled by rollicking email correspondence and occasional but intense telephone conversations that crossed the distance between us – Fitzgerald in her cottage by the lake in Port Loring, Ontario, and me in the Talon offices in Vancouver. Fitzgerald’s email messages roared like a river through our work together, polishing and smoothing the collection of poems and washing her editor with wave after wave of words, energy, and emotion. I excerpt some of those messages here to give the reader a sense of the writer and her intention for the text.
Mon 6/29/2015 12:24 PM
The book's finished, Ann-Marie; but, I need to put it into shape and proper order. You prolly know that I cannot gauge how good or lousy it is since right now, full bore at the core of it, conscripted, wholly and fully. Can't leave this spacestate, both ecstatic and straight-up ruthless, welded to process [. . . Impeccable Regret] *is* the best work I've done. I can promise it will be on your e-desk tomorrow night at the latest.
[Distillate © HA&L + Ann-Marie Metten {from the Greek bios} -- the course of a life.]
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