SPAN lang=EN-US>FONT face=Calibri>Before I Lose Light, is Sarah Richardson’s travel log through life. ...">
Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

Poetry Canadian

Before I Lose Light

by (author) Sarah Elizabeth Richardson

Publisher
Hidden Brook Press
Initial publish date
Nov 2015
Category
Canadian
Recommended Age
15 to 18
Recommended Grade
10 to 12
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781927725061
    Publish Date
    Nov 2015
    List Price
    $17.95

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt">SPAN lang=EN-US>FONT face=Calibri>Before I Lose Light, is Sarah Richardson’s travel log through life. She will not just transport you through parts of her life but though parts of your's also. This is not an angst, angry portrayal of life. Sarah will take you on a gentle canoe ride with the natural waves of life that keeps you on your toes as you take a smooth, cool stone for a walk. It seems that Sarah’s desire is to live life to the fullest before she loses the light. This book is a joy to read.?xml:namespace prefix = "o" ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

About the author

Contributor Notes

SPAN class=null>SPAN lang=EN-US> P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt">SPAN class=null style="FONT-SIZE: 17px">SPAN lang=EN-US>Biography P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt">SPAN class=null>SPAN lang=EN-US>S.E. (Sarah Elizabeth) Richardson is originally from the town of Erin, Ontario. Sarah grew up in the presence of pine trees and many indoor and outdoor fires. Sarah loved growing up in a small town where she spent much of her time outdoors, exploring the valleys and hills around her home and venturing through the many disused trails leading to the Credit River. In these times, she felt her imagination was fostered, and she was free to daydream. ?xml:namespace prefix = "o" ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt">SPAN class=null>SPAN lang=EN-US>Throughout her childhood, Sarah traveled and lived in Australia several times and has visited countries such as, New Zealand, Thailand, Hong Kong, South Africa, Mexico, Tahiti, Fiji and has ventured throughout Europe. Sarah enjoys road trips for their sense of adventure, movement and time for imagination. P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt">SPAN class=null>SPAN lang=EN-US>Sarah completed an undergraduate degree at Queen's University in the field of International Development Studies. This degree included an internship in her fourth year of study, where in 2011, she lived and volunteered in a small town called Makunduchi, on Zanzibar Island off the coast of Tanzania. This was a pivotal experience in her life--witnessing profound joy and love despite material deprivation led to a wider appreciation for complexity and diversity in cultures and human experience. While there she found an ever-renewing value for life and the need to follow one’s dreams, which gave her the strength and faith to prioritize the thing she loves most, writing. P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt">SPAN class=null>SPAN lang=EN-US> While at Queens University, Sarah benefited greatly from Carolyn Smart's creative writing course, as well as, the writer-in-residence position that held poet and fiction writer Stuart Ross, in 2011, as a mentor and reader for the Queen's and Kingston community. Working with Stuart Ross on her writing was hugely influential on her integrity and on her experience as a writer. Sarah also feels very privileged for the support and reading by Diane Schoemperlen, who was writer-in-residence in 2012. Sarah is also part of a writing group called Word Warriors, and workshops her poetry and fiction with respected poet, Ashley-Elizabeth Best. Early in 2013, Sarah became a member of the Canadian Cuban Literary Alliance. Sarah Richardson has been published in 529 (Proper Tales Press), That Not Forgotten (Hidden Brook Press), illiterature - issue two (Puddles of Sky Press), Inspired Heart (Melinda Cochrane International), and is currently writing two novels. When Sarah is not writing poetry or working on her fiction, she is likely reading or doing yoga, or can be found in downtown Kingston serving either delicious Pad Thais or artful lattes.  After work, Sarah often races down to the lakeside to catch the setting sun.

 

Excerpt: Before I Lose Light (by (author) Sarah Elizabeth Richardson)

SPAN lang=EN-US> P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt">SPAN lang=EN-US>Preface P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt">SPAN lang=EN-US>Before I Lose LightSPAN lang=EN-US> is a collection of poems that leapt out of me in moments of inspiration, curiosity, a sense of play, a longing, and in times demanding my emotional strength.  Found in these expressions contained within is a chord of honesty that I have tried very hard, despite the vulnerability such honesty entails, to not edit out.  Please note that the first poem in this collection called “Vessels” was part of an anthology, That Not Forgotten, published by Hidden Brook Press in 2012.  This poem, not only dear to my heart and a personal story, was what both led to and initiated this collection of poetry.   ?xml:namespace prefix = "o" ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /> P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt">SPAN lang=EN-US>I love to travel and have been lucky enough to have pursued much of it throughout my life.  Many of these travels did inspire poems and ideas, as well as, a greater sense of appreciation and yearning for that place of ‘home’.  Once finished university and free to choose where to settle while devoting myself to my writing, I deliberately and carefully chose Kingston because of my love for the city and the eclectic writers and friends that make this city a nurturing place for my writing and, as well simply, a fun place to live.  Kingston and the apartment I live in both serve and served not only as a place of home, but emerged unintentionally as a strong theme throughout this collection. P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt">SPAN lang=EN-US>Many of these poems also express coming to terms with the feelings I experience while facing the complex task of writing a novel that I have titled “Hazelnut”.  As you read through, when hearing me refer to a vast array of emotions around a thing called Hazelnut, you should know this is my novel in process.  This novel has been the biggest source of inspiration I have ever yet known.  The very act of creating it and trusting it enough to pursue has come from an immense treasure chest of inspiration.  Even in the process of trying to write it, I am still learning about it -- figuring out what this ‘thing’ is, what it has to teach me about the world, about people and relationships, about myself. It is, and has been a wonderful and incredibly huge discovery.  P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt">SPAN lang=EN-US>Because a number of poems in this collection center around or come from this novel writing experience, I feel I need to elaborate just a bit on it here. From the beginning, Hazelnut has fascinated me.  In fact even before as the normalcy of my life before it and then the presence of this ‘new thing’ after has been an interesting phenomenon  for me to grapple with—where do novels come from and can you ever be ready for their arrival?  Hazelnut also has, as with any novel, been a struggle to write.  It is a layered and dense story that often feels a lot bigger than my own mind and intelligence can manage.  P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt">SPAN lang=EN-US>I must add that beyond these feelings that are specific to the nature of Hazelnut as a story, writing this novel has taken me to the core of experiences and feelings that most writers also go through.  While there is pleasure and catharsis and imaginative journeys and discoveries and magic in the process of creating, there are also inherent challenges and struggles that writers endure—from loneliness to the feeling of impossibility and exhaustion, and to then even the worst, self-doubt.  P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt">SPAN lang=EN-US>Within this collection, most of the poems on these matters came in a cathartic form, in which the poems or verses or tidbits or whatever term one would might choose, the very use of any words to express such tough feelings became a vehicle for not only expression of but a homage to these feelings.  While these feelings one has in this effort cannot (and perhaps should not) be cured nor avoided altogether, what arises with and through them can be articulated and spoken for and in this, that writing pain I was feeling can and could be better understood by my ‘self’ and then confronted.  P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt">SPAN lang=EN-US>As a bit of an epilogue to the sometimes trying emotions grappled with throughout much of this collection, the last few poems contained here within were poems written while on a trip with my sister, Alex, to Ireland.  This was a very special trip for both of us not only because of our love for each other’s company, but also the wonderful people and beautiful places in Ireland that we came upon.  Ireland with its bounty of writers and the poetic voice that seems natural to its people and countryside, there, I felt a real sense of play. P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt">SPAN lang=EN-US>This - to even just one hardworking writer out there, let it be my humble wish that just one of these poems befriend or accompany you or push you forward in those moments of struggle… as my Mother says, ‘There is probably a writer in all of us’.  So please take it to heart and take up that pencil and paper, and then get to it and trust and believe in yourself. P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt">SPAN lang=EN-US>My thank you to you- the reader- who has read this far. P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt">SPAN lang=EN-US>Sincerely, P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt">SPAN lang=EN-US>S.E. Richardson

 

Editorial Reviews

x