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Nature
in its beauty and dynamism is a fragile system that could be lost to us
– though it will continue in some form without us. ‘Uninterrupted’ nature
was once our home and identity, one that we looked to for meaning and
solace, a world larger than ourselves – but lately we seem to have forgotten
our place in the cosmos. These poems of warning evoke terror in recognition
of what could be our future. Yet they are written out of love for what
could be lost and they search for what may be wrong in ourselves.
These poems of gillian harding-russell reward the reader with panoramic
images of the natural/unnatural world. Her description is almost visionary
in its exactness, with questions (challenging, incisive, puzzled, unanswerable)
valid as ways to begin and sometimes end. We ache with her awareness
of what she has “always done, rushing here and now there / along well-oiled
ruts, a fellow flash of teeth / reaching into my heart when all I want
/ is a logical, an easier, way out.” Yet her desire for hope manages
to carry the poems beyond the idea of our evident destruction of the
planet, and her irony and humour personalize (and universalize) the
sometimes sad depictions of us and Earth. And let’s not forget the love
of foxes, just one example of the intimacy gillian’s poems create with
the earth and its creatures, including ourselves.
~ David Zieroth, author of the bridge from day to night
Regina poet, editor and reviewer gillian harding-russell has published
in journals across Canada and her poems have been anthologized in seventeen
collections. Her recent poetry collection, In Another Air (Radiant
2018), was shortlisted for a City of Regina Saskatchewan Book Award. Her
work has been shortlisted or has won the Thomas Morton Award, gritLIT
and Exile’s Gwendolyn MacEwen chapbook competitions. She received a Ph.D.
from the University of Saskatchewan, completing her dissertation on postmodern
Canadian poetry. Uninterrupted is her fifth poetry collection.
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