From the head frames of mines near the outskirts of Sudbury, to the birds that soar over Pelee Island, Kim Fahner's poetry is about discovering self, journeying, finding paths and straying from them, and then trying to make meaning out of image and metaphor. Her voice is clear, quirky, and spirited, but always searching. In the midst of the poetry, there are birds, trees, shifts of light and weather in sky, feathers, and pebbles gathered on the shores of lakes. She is drawn to the rhythms of the natural world in a manner that speaks to her Celtic background. Part of the collection is ekphrastic in origin and fashion, speaking particularly to the artistic works of Georgia O'Keefe, Mary Pratt, Alex Colville, Nicola Slattery, and Barry Ace. The Great Lakes Sequence, for instance, is set in Ontario, and based on the honouring blankets created by Ojibway artist, Barry Ace, in his exhibition honouring the waters of the five Great Lakes. Fahner's northern roots are reflected in this sequence, with references to road trips along highways that speak of family history and connection to the land. In all of the ekprhastic pieces, Fahner is fascinated by the notion that the artist is hidden, and yet somehow still reflected, in the work they have created. She creates pieces of poetry that delve into the worlds of the artists, weaving her own life into their works. The most obvious metaphor is the journey that we take as humans, from place to place, but also within ourselves, searching for meaning and answers in places as 'normal' as an Irish pub overlooking the Atlantic, or in gathering sea glass and pressed coal from shipwrecks in Lake Erie. She journeys on land, and internally, drawing her reader in and inviting them to imagine such future journeys of their own.

Kim Fahner lives and writes in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. She has published two chapbooks, You Must Imagine the Cold Here (Scrivener, 1997) and Fault Lines and Shatter Cones (Emergency Flash Mob Press, 2023), as well as five full books of poetry, including: braille on water (Penumbra Press, 2001), The Narcoleptic Madonna (Penumbra Press, 2012), Some Other Sky (Black Moss Press, 2017), These Wings (Pedlar Press, 2019), and Emptying the Ocean (Frontenac House, 2022). Kim is the First Vice-Chair of The Writers' Union of Canada (2023-25), a full member of the League of Canadian Poets, and a supporting member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada. She was Poet Laureate for the City of Greater Sudbury from 2016-18.

Kim Fahner's profile page