River of Your Days - Elizabeth Carriere - Bog

Experiences growing up on the Prairies and living in Winnipeg, Montreal and coastal British Columbia mesh with reflections from living and working in countries in the Global South affected by poverty, disasters and conflict. In this volume of contemporary freeverse poetry, Carriere celebrates the beauty, challenges and complexity of what she observes and experiences in intelligent, highly visual, often melodic poetry that invites the reader to engage creatively with it. One thing becomes another in her lines: night is a sparrow, "a brown shadow that eats/its own dark,/folds its radiant wings." Her keen gaze finds, now a snake "noosing its beauty/around a leafless branch," now fallen bodies on broken steps in a war zone, now a child, "mix of starfish and ash, small/ cockle tossed on the ocean's froth." Reflections on age, on war, on love and loss, are intertwined with a palpable passion for, and engagement with, the natural world..
River of Your Days will appeal to adult readers of all ages, backgrounds, and walks of life.