The Divining Pool

Amanda Merritt's work looks fearlessly into the darkest recesses of the human heart and finds a terrible beauty within it. Merritt recently completed her poetry MFA at St. Andrew's where she was mentored by Don Paterson. She was presented with the 2015 Anstruther Poetry Award and, in Canada, she has been published in Descant, Grain, Prairie Fire, Hart House Review, Qwerty, and Untethered. In the UK she has been published in Stand and Aesthetica's 2017 Creative Writing Annual anthology. Merritt is based in Victoria, Canada. The Divining Pool is her debut collection of poetry. 'Lyrical yet laced with more than a hint of menace, these subtly cadenced poems register with intense precision moments of parting and recognition. Amanda Merritt's first collection establishes her as deftly alert to hurt and beauty, and as a compelling new voice in Canadian poetry.' - Robert Crawford