There are so many reasons we should all circle January 12, 2019 on our brand new calendars and come down to Cove Commons to hear Lorna Crozier read from her newest book of poems, God of Shadows. One of those reasons is because Lorna is such an intelligent and spirited reader that it is a privilege to get to spend time with her –but actually that is only the second reason.
The first reason is to warm our winter souls with her words. A few years ago, Lorna reflected on the writing process in a Margaret Laurence Lecture, saying “when a poem is about to nudge its way into life, when it’s pausing on the border between silence and being, it’s as if the whole body has grown antennae.” She could have been describing the listening experience. Even those of us who may remember painful high school English classes will fall in love with the genre in the presence of this master poet who is a recipient of the Governor-General Award, Order of Canada, five honorary degrees, several book awards, and is internationally applauded, most recently in China.
God of Shadowsis Lorna’s seventeenth book of poetry, a list which doesn’t include the half dozen anthologies she has edited or her award-winning memoir. In this newest collection of prose poems, she offers up gods we have never heard of such as the gods of forgetting, of clichés, of sex, of owls, of the narrow-minded. In “God of Wind” we find “what it loves most on earth is an inky lung of starlings tossed into the sky. Of the human body, it loves hair.” These poems are latticed with wit and surprise, disquiet and devotion.
Give yourself and your loved ones a rare present and come to Cove Commons, January 12, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tickets are available for $10 at the Library and the Gallery. The afternoon workshop is full, but a waitlist is being recorded.
