Field Requiem

A powerful requiem for a vanishing way of life on the Canadian prairies. Sheri Benning's Field Requiem bears witness to the violence inherent in the shift to industrialized farming in prairie Canada. These poems chart the collapse of the family farm, even as the speaker suffers, too. The collection reckons with the devastating social and environmental impacts of the agribusiness industry.

The long elegy, 'Let Them Rest', mourns Saskatchewan's ruined farmsteads and razed communities, tracing the luminous contours of love for family and land in the face of loss. Benning's incantatory voice rises from dream into dark vision, renewing a sense of locality in the teeth of corporate farming practices.

Field Requiem is for readers of contemporary poetry interested in:
Rural life and social change in CanadaEnvironmental issues and the impact of agricultureThemes of grief, memory, and history