“Erling Friis-Baastad’s remarkable poems… become prayer-like in their transcendence of hard conditions.”
~ Charles Lillard, Victoria Times-Colonist

In his impressive new collection Fossil Light, Erling Friis-Baastad continues to explore and find language for not only the northern Canadian landscape —both human and other-than-human—but also our moment in cosmic history. He extends his gaze to undertake an attentive traverse of deep space and deep time. These taut, intense poems are the words of a poet determined to relocate our place in the cosmos during an age of immense dislocation.

“With an exile’s voice, Erling Friis-Baastad calls forth the mythology lost in each of us. From northern forest, to Andalusian desert, out across conjectured galaxies, these poems tune to their environment, then startle themselves new. From an essential northern poet, the magnesium light of these poems will bear us out.”
~ Michael Eden Reynolds author of Slant Room

“Erling Friis-Baastad’s latest collection carries us from the hot core of our own heart to the edge of the solar system and beyond. It is a journey of human faith and fear, of being lured by rumours of ‘angel sightings’ in the far north—the poet’s home for so long—and the ‘languid demon’ of the south. With exact and beautiful language, Friis-Baastad has traced the evolution of the human spirit. Reading Fossil Light is exhilarating and terrifying, like riding a meteorite.”
~ Joanna Lilley author of The Fleece Era and The Birthday Books

Friis-Baastad’s previous poetry collections include The Exile House,Wood Spoken: New and Selected Poems and The Ash Lad. A long-time resident of the Yukon Territory, he now lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba.