Woodstoves & Ravens

This book describes a wild-land sojourn with woodstoves and ravens in the boreal forest on the Canadian north shore of Lake Superior, near Thunder Bay. The author, a forest-ecologist, distils two decades of back-country living into tight, lyrical poems -- on wildness, the seasonal darkness of the mind, relation-ships with plants, animals and, occasionally, people. Strongly grounded in Tang Dynasty poetry and Buddhist philosophy, his work moves beyond description to focus on the iro-ny and agony of human self-awareness, which forever removes us from natural systems. Yet the poems reflect the author's deep fondness for northern wild lands and life in remote re-gions. Sometimes he is also funny. The narra-tive is complemented by the original art of Alanna Marohnic whose work has foundation in extensive northern experience. The book will be of special interest to people who "live on the edge", those who hope to do so some-day -- and people who live there vicariously.