Poetry in Place: Poetry and Environmental Hope in a Southern Ontario Bioregion

Poetry in Place is a curated anthology for readers who love both poetry and the land. The subject matter addresses a very specific territory: the ＂land between the waters＂ of Lake Ontario and the Grand River, west of Toronto and east of London, in southern Ontario. The anthology includes poems by more than forty contemporary poets of different ages, ethnicities, and backgrounds. They pondered the natural world around them, and asked themselves, ＂What is it that the land has to say to us?＂ In these days of climate disruption, biodiversity loss, a new awareness of the dire history of colonized Indigenous peoples, and the spectre of global pandemic, how can we hear the voices of the natural world? We suggest that poetry offers a powerful mode of attention and analysis, now as it always has done. Contributors are also interviewed about their relationship with the land, their spirituality and worldview, and their motivation in writing poetry about the environment.

Deborah Bowen is a professor emerita of English at Redeemer University. She is the author of Stories of the Middle Space: Reading the Ethics of Postmodern Realisms (2010) and the editor of The Strategic Smorgasbord of Postmodernity: Literature and the Christian Critic (2007). Bowen has served as co-chair of the national Christianity and Literature study group. She holds a PhD from the University of Ottawa, a Certificate in Education from Cambridge University, and a BA from Oxford University.