Multiple meanings are generated and evoked through the disruption of a simple linear narrative and lyric sensibility, in this collection of poems where language is not simply "a means to an end.' Instead, its instability and unpredictability are encouraged and given a free hand: the effect is the creation of an alternate reality that is as Canadian as Canada itself. In breathtaking poems like "Arranged Tributaries,' Downe proves herself the consummate literary scientist: the imagination's cartographer, geologist, meteorologist, and historian. Ultimately, the poems document a natural history of culture and communication, momentarily stabilizing the perpetually shifting sands upon which all such institutions are built.

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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