Diagnosing Minor Illness in Children is a striking third collection by one of Canada's most essential poets. Kerry Ryan stares without flinching at everything in her path: family, grief, dog obituaries, fine-toothed lice combs, quotidian gore, a waterslide that is "not a slide, it's a throat closing in" and herself as mother. The collection provides an intimate glimpse of the poet struggling to suckle a wolf pup while admiring the softness of her daughter's cheek. Through humour and immersion in nature, Ryan comes to terms with the self-doubt and dislocation of motherhood. Staying close to home, she sees herself (and us) in birds blown thousands of kilometres off course and reindeer defending their young. Ryan's Diagnosing Minor Illness in Children is a fierce, edgy, and tender look at motherhood and midlife. (From Frontenac House)

Diagnosing Minor Illness in Children is Kerry Ryan's third poetry collection. She is also the author of The Sleeping Life and Vs., which was a finalist for the Acorn-Plantos Award for Peoples' Poetry. Her poems and essays have appeared in journals and anthologies across Canada. In 2022, she was shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize for Grief white. She was previously on the longlist for the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize for Driver's Seat & Grief Knot. She lives and writes in Winnipeg.