The Absence of Thirteen

“Laura Furster’s extraordinary first book of poems, The Absence of Thirteen, rings with a hard, succinct, yet generous music of disabused awareness. These brief poems never shrink from realities of experience, whether outer realities (deaths, illnesses, relationships, social circumstances) nor inner responses that are often disconsolate.” — A. F. Moritz

"In these short, tight, loaded poems, Laura Furster, much like Amy Lowell, Hilda Doolittle, and other Imagists of the 20th Century, masterfully juxtaposes and synthesizes exacting imagery, in her powerful debut." — Marc di Saverio

The Absence of Thirteen is a collection of poems driven by image and sensation, which explore the human experience from the everyday to the singular. The superstitious removal of the thirteenth floor in high-rise buildings creates a concept of otherworldly space. This space exists in our minds as part of a world of ineffable emotions and ideas.At once brief and vivid, the collected poems seek to capture the indescribable, and then set it free.

Laura Furster is a Canadian poet, fiction writer, journalist, and fine artist. Her poetry has been printed in CAROUSEL Magazine, and she is a columnist for The Hamilton Spectator. She works in her home studio in Hamilton, Ontario.