Arleen Paré

Arleen Paré
Arleen Paré

A master of the mixed-genre book, Arleen Paré is both a novelist and a poet. Her first book, Paper Trail, won the Victoria Butler Book Prize. Leaving Now, her second, was listed as an All Lit Up top ten book. Her third, a collection of poetry entitled Lake of Two Mountains, tells the story of a lake and the many relationships built up around it. The book won both a Governor General’s Literary Award and a CBC Bookie Prize. He Leaves His Face in the Funeral Car, 2015, was a finalist for the Victoria Butler Book Prize. Paré’s most recent poetry collection, The Girls with Stone Faces, describes the lives and art of two well-known twentieth-century sculptors, Florence Wyle and Frances Loring. Paré, who lives and writes in Victoria, holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in poetry from the University of Victoria.

Fourteen Lines About Beauty

1. A certain charm informs any numerical system.
2. It’s close to beauty, but it is not beauty.
3. A line is only a line, but add a loop, a finale, and you’re almost there.
4. It is not the frog.
5. It is not the bog or the weeds or the wart on the frog.
6. Unless you chose the right angle.
7. Philosophers may struggle; apple blossoms pay no attention.
8. If I kiss you, am I more beautiful. Are you?
9. If proportion.
10. If contrast, say blue versus orange.
11. There once were clouds of butterflies. The Italian say farfalle.
12. Papillons in the French.
13. The end might not be beautiful.
14. The beginning. Yes, but middle is best.

From The Girls with Stone Faces, Copyright Arleen Paré, 2017.