BOOKS
2022
Arborophobia is a poetic spiritual reckoning. Its elegies, litanies, and indictments concern wonder, guilt, and grief about the journey of human life and the state of the natural world. When a child attempts suicide and western North America burns and mortality closes in, is spiritual and emotional solace possible or even desirable? Answers abound in measured, texturally intimate, and often surprising ways. Arborophobia is a companion for all who grapple with the problem of hope in times of crisis.
ARBOROPHOBIA
THE FLICKER TREE: OKANAGAN POEMS
2012
A collection of poems about the animals, plants, places and people of the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia.
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Sagebrush Mariposa Lily
When I see it in early summer
rising like a fantasy out of last year’s
grass, I feel my own flesh
unpeel from the stem of my bone,
become petalled,
muscle and skin
thinly scalpeled open, purple,
bruising, incarnate
in wind and sun.
MANDORLA
2005
A collection of poems about motherhood, children, the author's family roots in a Ukrainian settlement in Alberta.
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Effigy
At the beach, my child slowly buries me.
He packs the sand into a pail. When
It’s full, he ices the damp cement smoothly
Between the pail’s parted lips and then
Dumps the fragile cones on top of me.
Warm and rotten bricks, they crumble: but only
At first a dusty sheet, dry and shroudy—
Soon a suit of armour made of stone.
Buried alive, I’m now his monument.
Beneath the heavenly vault, I cannot raise
A hand or ease the vice of ribs around
My heart. As children must, he will prevent
The wrath of gods that rise. Today he plays
His future plans to keep me in the ground.
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THE ADULTERY POEMS
2002
A collection of poems about love, lust, betrayal and pleasure.
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Latin for "Ditch"
is vulva.
Funny how this makes me think
of that ad I saw for the new female condom.
It is called "Reality".
My brain does a back flip.
Why do men get condoms called
"Ramses", "Sheik", "Supreme"?
And we get a dose of reality again?
What about "Tunnel of Love"?
Wasn't that good enough?
What about "Vortex"?
Too flippant? Having too much fun?
Or "Lovers' Lane" or "Whirlpool"?
Reality my ass.
The bastards.
And come to think of it,
he really ditched me good.
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