This new collection by Lynn Davies, her first in eight years, abounds in departures: words and communities die, trout-lilies and passengers vanish, even the King and Queen of Fairies disappear. In poem after poem, Davies's powerful imagination blends observation and fancy, passion and playfulness, producing strikingly fresh metaphors. Squirrels paddle away on twig-rafts; giant horses take to the sky. Some poems give simple weight to the details of everyday life; others evoke an imaginative world inhabited by giant beavers, elf-thugs, and the great caw-dragon. Throughout this magnificently fresh collection, the ocean, the rain, and the river suggest something big on the move in our lives even when we feel stranded. Displaying a dexterity of tone and an understated bravura, she writes of the extremities of losing and then awakening, honouring gratitude with "as many words as new leaves."

Lynn Davies’s remarkable debut collection, The Bridge that Carries the Road, was a finalist for both the 1999 Governor General’s Award and the Gerald Lampert Award. Her poems are frequently broadcast on CBC Radio and have appeared in magazines such as The Fiddlehead and The Malahat Review and in anthologies such as Why I Sing The Blues, An Orange from Portugal, Listening With The Ear Of The Heart, Coastlines, and New Canadian Poetry. Originally from Moncton, NB, she lived in Dartmouth, NS, for more than a decade, where she obtained a BA in Honours English from the University of King’s College. An alumnus of both the Banff Writers’ Studio and St. Peter’s College in Saskatchewan, Lynn Davies now resides near Fredericton.

Lynn Davies' profile page

"These simple, elemental words and phrases... and many more... will vibrate in your mind, in your cells, long after you reluctantly turn over the last page."

<i>Bookgaga</i>

"It's to Davies's credit that she leaves us wanting more, leaves us with images at times haunting, at times healing."

<i>Canadian Poetries</i>

"These are poems that will cast spells in their own sweet time."

<i>Pickle Me This</i>

"The voice in Lynn Davies's stunning new collection exudes a sense of someone speaking from the beyond, from a place where ‘time as I once knew it was gone;’ yet Davies' poetic voice is far from distanced or aloof; rather, it is witty, wise, and often funny. The ‘field crackling with sound’ that she portrays in ‘Winding Down’ could well describe this entire collection — a gorgeous lyric tour de force."

Jeanette Lynes