White Stone: The Alice Poems

These evocative poems move from the icon of Alice in Wonderland to the imagined figure of Alice out of Wonderland: on a Vancouver beach with the poet, underground with Persephone, in Memphis with Elvis. But first they explore the life of the real Alice Liddell [1852-1934], who sat still for Charles Dodgson’s camera and inspired the Alice books which prompted his rise to fame as Lewis Carroll. The publication of White Stone in 1998 coincides with the centenary of Lewis Carroll’s death.

The Governor General’s Award jury citation: “WHITE STONE: THE ALICE POEMS was judged the best book of poetry in 1998 for as many reasons as there are poems in this powerful sequence, but due primarily to Stephanie Bolster’s ability to depict the emotional life of Alice Liddell as girl and woman in brilliant narrative juxtapositions. She uses her lyrical powers to present Alice the creation and Alice the person in a cultural context that, on one level, re-examines cognition and dissociation and on another, liberates the poetic sequence from the monotony of story and closure.”