Portugal Calling, poemoirs

At times Franci’s “poemoirs” transform the seemingly mundane everyday into something revelatory and profound, offering various modes of exploration and greater connection to the inner and outer worlds. Hers is a poetic of distillation, of self-inquiry. They say when you travel, you find yourself. And Louann’s poems are the YOU ARE HERE sign posts on the route. Sit back, relax, open this book, sip slowly, savouring as you would a Vinho Tinto. Drink in these poems of Franci Louann’s Portugal.

—Warren Dean Fulton – publisher, poet, host, filmmaker, poetry publisher, event organizer, performer, Poetic Justice/Poetry New West 2017–2021

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Franci Louann has created poetry of great sensitivity and beauty that captures the immigrant’s complex connection to home, roots and sense of self. These are also love poems – love of land, love of home and love of Joe – his rich, complex cultural heritage and personal history. Franci has created a sensual paean to love and longing and our connection to place, with poetry of force, originality and distinction.

—Alan Hill – author of In the Blood, Caitlin Press 2022; Poet Laureate for New Westminster.

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This gathering of what Franci Louann terms “poemoirs” invites the reader to join in her visit to Portugal’s Algarve and Argentina. Readers will want to move their skeletos (as one poem declares) to the music and rhythms of the poet’s visit. Louann’s delight in sensual detail becomes the meals, the dance floors and barroom tables she discovers. More engaging than simple remembrance, these details gradually take shape as a lushly fashioned word sculpture. Or, as she suggests in “Picture Perfect,” the collection surreptitiously makes its way to become a painting. The sentiment is clear throughout, but never sentimental, and we come away with a tangible realization of the call that draws Louann to Portugal.

—Calvin Wharton – poet and author of This Here Paradise; retired head of Creative Writing Department at Douglas College