<p><b>Winner, 2017 ReLit Award</b></p><p>Katherine Leyton's fresh and vibrant debut collection takes on the sexual politics of the twenty-first century, boldly holding up a mirror to the male gaze and interrogating the nature of images and illusions.</p> <p>Confronting the forces of mass communication — whether television, movies, or the Internet — Leyton explores the subtle effects of the media on our perceptions and interactions, including the pain of alienation and the threat of violence simmering just below the surface.</p> <p>And yet, for all its unflinching and raw lyricism, the poetry of <i>All the Gold Hurts My Mouth</i> is warm and searching, full of humour and hope. Engaging her readers with lush vocabulary and spare, tightly controlled forms, Leyton's poems become a rich quest for identity, authenticity, and nature uncorrupted. Reaching gloriously from isolation and pain to connection with love, Leyton channels the wit of feminists past to create a manifesto for our time, an affirmation of what might be possible.</p>