Born in Nanaimo, British Columbia in Canada from families having British, Scottish and Norwegian ancestry who came to British Columbia about 1900 to work in the forest industries. I grew up in British Columbia and saw much of it with our family through vacations and travel. In the 50’s we crossed Canada many times visiting relatives in New Brunswick. My grandmother, an artist, was born in Truro NS, however she later built a little log house on Gabriola Island just off the coast of Nanaimo in the Salish Sea. The forests, coastlines, and mountains of my youth quietly shaped my sense of rhythm, observation, and the landscapes I return to in my poetry.
In my later teens we moved to Ottawa. My father was an engineer working for the Department of National Defense and was transferred to DND IN Ottawa. The family became interested in farming and much of my formative years were spent working on the farm driving machines which I learned to do even before I got my driver’s licence. I learned a lot from my dad. Every sunrise over the fields, the sound of machines in motion, and the changing seasons became part of a mental map that now informs the imagery and structure of my poems.
Before and after a degree received from Carleton University I worked for most of my career in a bank, retiring to a farm which we made organic growing principally soybeans and barley. Our family saw much of Canada and the US through many different and informative vacations every year. We finally retired for good, and for some inexplicable reason I decided to try writing poetry. I of course knew nothing about writing, much less about writing poetry, and wouldn’t know the difference between iambic pentameter or simple rhyme. The landscapes I had traveled and the rhythms of daily life created a fertile space for words, letting memory and observation intermingle freely in verse.
My poems involved writing about experiences in my early life and fond memories of my youth. However the signs of our times saw me taking a more critical and historical approach to subject matter and now poems include some anger at the continuing strife, injustice, war and misinformation in the world today. I have read widely throughout my life and of course such experiences drawn from books by many authors gave much perspective to the signs of our times. History, observation, and the human condition became intertwined in my writing, providing both a lens and a compass for my poetic voice.
After retirement we visited many places in Europe including Istanbul, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, The Netherlands, Italy and England. However, Canada is home. The experiences abroad deepened my appreciation for home, highlighting the wilderness, coasts, and rhythms of Canadian life that recur in my poetry.
The book “From North Of The 49th” explores many topics drawn from my own experiences in British Columbia and Nova Scotia, history, current events, and the signs of our times and events that affect us all. I find that history is a topic that is easily forgotten, especially when considering the ongoing violence in the world today. It seems man easily forgets blood and destruction perpetrated in the past and carried forward to now. Through this work, I invite readers to explore the intersection of memory, place, and the enduring patterns of human experience that continue to shape our world.
