Sugar

Synopsis

A memory piece served up in sequence, Sugar is a fifty part, long form poem which tells the story of one woman's struggle with her own vices. Though Sugar contains the themes of drug abuse, alcoholism and hard core sexuality, they are used to explore the human condition, in particular ideas on loss, and how one copes with the solitude of heartbreak. Sugar is in fact a love story that asks the important questions: Where do people go when they leave you? How small can love get?

Steve Szewczok stems from the island of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia on the east coast of Canada. With a background in theatre and music, Steve has performed in over 50 theatrical productions as well as working in radio and film and writing for the theatre. Steve currently lives in Montreal with his two children and works on the production side of the film industry. Sugar is Steve's debut book of poetry. He is currently working on his second collection of poems.

Reviews

"Steve Szewczok, with this work, fearlessly goes into the darkest recesses of human despair and explores, with a brutal honesty, the choices the abused, forgotten and lost make to simply survive. Sugar is a brilliant character work which reaches out and touches us, un-apologetically, in all of the soft tissues we have from past bruising."
- William Marshe, poet and editor

"My introduction to Sugar was casual. Steve had visited me at my home in Stratford and casually mentioned some "poems" he was working on, leaving them on my dining room table on his return to Montreal. I picked the pages from the table and my relationship with Sugar was no longer casual. I was stunned by their power, beautiful starkness and complexity; by their 'life'. I feel ardent about these poems and privileged to know the artist."
- Brian McKay, theatre professional and teacher

"Sugar is, all at once, beautiful, startling and mysterious. These slivers of a tortured life linger in the mind like borrowed memories."
- Ed Macdonald, author of Spat the Dummy