Jen Currin’s The Inquisition Yours is a provocative poetic exploration of interior and external realities. Using surrealist techniques of surprise and unexpected juxtaposition, Currin explores life in a world overloaded with information and communication, and then returns to the mysteries of family and origin.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I sat down to read this book. I associated capital-S Surrealism with early century Paris, so would this translate into 21st century Canada? I can now say the answer is, somehow, yes. If anything, surrealist techniques gain new relevance in an era when we can watch detainees be tortured on YouTube or join a Facebook group about an onion ring getting more votes than Stephen Harper.

Politics are personal and immediate in several poems, from the ever-looming critical male authority in “Patriarch,” to the sometimes ineffectiveness of First World activism in “Graffiti, or, You Are on Yew Street.” The speaker in “Graffiti” makes slogans and signs but warily notes:

“But the undo mob isn’t angry.

They’re busy loving everything”

This book speaks affectionately and honestly to a young, politically aware demographic. One of the last poems in the book, “Being Young Professionals” stands out as a stark, personal portrayal of an individual who was raised with freedom and privilege and has an earnest desire to change the world. Readers will nod their heads in understanding at the lines:

“We liked to read & needed a job.

To think our way out of this drowning dream.

We had to do something

& we made choices.”

Currin’s writing voice is distinct. The poems are made up of a cacophony of images (birds, monkeys, crackers, monks and mountains all in the first poem, for example) that seem loud and too inharmonious for a cohesive narrative to be found. But once the dream-like world created by the poems comes into focus, the powerful imagery reveals a story, albeit an open-ended and ever-shifting one. Currin’s subtle descriptions and allusions fare much better than the rare forced metaphor in this collection, like the one in “Stained Paper, the Curse Of”:

“I’ve been there and back, never cured.

The festival’s vagina always open.”

Reading this book all at once will benefit the reader as they discover themes, characters and images weaving in and out of poems. An open mind and a flexible imagination is key in order to let yourself fall into Currin’s curious world.