If the expression 'Two steps forward, one step back' describes the conventional attitude toward hesitation and uncertainty, Disturbances of Progress takes those steps and turns them into a dance.

In an intimate and intensely personal manner, Lise Downe's third major collection of poetry documents the sorts of interruptions that plague the lives of artists and writers. Yet the poems themselves emerge as testament to the triumphof the artistic process over circumstance.

As the poet mulls over the uncertainty of her own life's trajectory, she deftly weaves together the imagery of searching and the vagaries of language into a whole cloth. Downe's writing uses the qualities of colloquial speech - hesitation, interjection, digression and repetition - to convey the experience of writing as an unforseen progression. Favouring intuitive progress over linear intention, these vivid, painterly poems reflectthe dynamic between the known and the unknown.

Lise Downe grew up in London, Ontario, where she experienced the art of Londoners Greg Curnoe, Jack Chambers, and Patterson Ewen, among others. After completing a major in printmaking at the Beal Art Annex , she then spent a year in England studying sculpture. On her return to Canada she painted for many years before turning her hand to writing, and later, to studying jewellery at George Brown College and OCAD. She has three previously published books of poetry – A Velvet Increase of Curiosity, The Soft Signature, and Disturbances of Progress. She has exhibited her art and jewellery in Toronto and across Canada. Lise lives in Toronto, where she continues to write and make jewellery and other small sculptures.

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