A finalist for the Milton Acorn People's Poetry Award and Gerald Lampert Award for Best First Book of Poetry in 1999, The Canadian Girl is a stunning debut.

"Many of Stewart's poems honour the ordinary and domestic; others get dressed up and strut their stuff. The female body and mind, from adolescence to maturity, bask in their glory, seducing the reader from cover to cover."
-Lorna Crozier

In this first poetry collection, Shannon Stewart spans a century of female experience, from an 1890s Victorian housekeeping "how to" to her own journey into womanhood. From corsets to chewing gum, hysteric convulsions to conception, Stewart explores body, soul and the daily task of living with wisdom and wit. Whether examining a bizarre sexual ritual of puberty or a Victorian woman's penchant for separating male and female authors on her bookshelf, Stewart's is a real-life poetics that is earthy and expressive, astute and funny.