In 1973 The Fiddlehead accepted a young writer's first magazine submission of thirteen poems and published all thirteen in a single issue. The poet who signed herself E. Blagrave then disappeared from print for thirty years, not to begin writing again until much later in life. Tilt, her first collection, brings together early and late poems, old soul and child-spirit-a voice unlike any other in Canadian poetry, by times haunting in its lyricism, by times terse and worldly-wise. Rooted in dream, song, rune and incantation, threaded with ancient echoes, the poems in Tilt are a window on a world that is intensely personal, strange, yet strangely familiar.

E. BLAGRAVE lived on air force bases in the prairies, Ontario, and Quebec until her father retired to Victoria when she was twelve. At nineteen she moved to Montreal for a few years, writing poetry and assisting in theatrical productions, before returning to Victoria where she worked for the government and as a sound and lighting technician at the McPherson Playhouse. She began writing again around 2003 and has since

published poems in The Fiddlehead, Arc, CV2, and The New Quarterly, as well as in the Cormorant anthology, Undercurrents: New Voices in Canadian Poetry.

E. Blagrave's profile page

“The inseparability of nature, time, and love imbue Blagrave’s collection with wonderment and simplicity while never offering answers. At the core of each poem is a solitary reflection on experiences that seem suspended in time. The poems of Tilt unravel in slow motion, allowing the reader to relish them.”

Canadian Literature

“I was going to say at the start that I wished more poets wrote like E. Blagrave, but I take back the unsaid. This spare type of voice, sharp and clear as an unknown bird’s, is always a part of poetry’s chorus, but it is and must remain singular, delicate, hard-won.”

Canadian Notes and Queries

“Often creates what might be called archetypal or even mythic figures … Blagrave seems at times to be summoning these characters, as though words still had the magical power of spells.”

ARC Poetry