Emily Carr recorded the experience of the West Coast soul in her living landscapes and her portraits of BC's towering firs. Kate Braid, in To This Cedar Fountain, engages Carr in conversation as only a kindred spirit could: a West Coaster, an artist, a woman with an affinity for timber. In these poems Carr's sensual paintings envelop Braid; Emily romances the trees while Kate bears witness.

To This Cedar Fountain is a dialogue between two BC legends, each a distinct voice for her own generation but both indisputably coastal souls. The first edition of this book was nominated for a Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize.

Kate Braid worked as a receptionist, secretary, teacher’s aide, lumber piler, construction labourer, apprentice and journey-carpenter before finally “settling down”? as a teacher. She has taught construction and creative writing, the latter in workshops and also at SFU, UBC and for ten years at Vancouver Island University (previously Malaspina University-College). She is the author of A Well-Mannered Storm: The Glenn Gould Poems, Covering Rough Ground, To This Cedar Fountain and Inward to the Bones: Georgia O’Keeffe’s Journey with Emily Carr. In 2005 she co-edited, with Sandy Shreve, In Fine Form: The Canadian Book of Form Poetry. Braid’s second book of poems about her carpentry experiences, Turning Left to the Ladies, was published by Palimpsest Press. She lives in Burnaby, BC, with her partner.

Kate Braid's profile page

Kate Braid has been powerfully attracted to Emily Carr—as a woman of great courage and perseverance, as a passionate painter and a memorable writer. And without doubt Emily Carr—who never could abide sycophantic flattery—would have recognized a sympathetic spirit in the strength, unadorned directness and clarity of these poems which she inspired Kate to write. In coupling quotations from Carr’s Journals with her own vibrant poetry, Braid has created a wonderful book.

—Doris Shadbolt, author of The Art of Emily Carr