What: Lorna Crozier
Where: Emily Carr House, 207 Government St.
When: Saturday, Oct. 5, 2 p.m.
Admission: $5 (by donation)
Note: Crozier will have books for sale at the event
A career in writing has taken Lorna Crozier all over. She has just returned from poetry festivals in Kingston, Ont., and Moose Jaw, Sask., and in the coming weeks she will travel to festivals in Whistler, Calgary and Toronto.
So the celebrated Victoria poet was excited when she learned the launch of her new book of poetry, The House the Spirit Builds, would be feted with a Saturday afternoon appearance at Emily Carr House on Government Street.
The collaboration between Crozier and Ontario photographers Peter Coffman and Diane Laundy 鈥渉as an artsy鈥� feel to it, which made the National Historic site where Victoria鈥檚 most famous painter grew up the perfect setting for her book launch, Crozier said. 鈥淚鈥檝e never read there before, so that鈥檚 quite exciting.鈥�
Crozier wrote the majority of poems in the 80-page book after she chose with Coffman and Laundy the 37 photos to be used 鈥� a selection of images taken at the Frontenac Arch Biosphere Reserve in Ontario, one of 18 of its kind in Canada.
Crozier knows the Frontenac well, having taught poetry there over several summer writing sessions. She visited the reserve days ago, when she was in Ontario for the Kingston festival, and realized her recent poems inspired by this very specific place succeed on account of their universality.
鈥淵ou start with the specific, but you hope the specific is universal and speaks to people鈥檚 lives, no matter where they are from or where they live,鈥� said Crozier, a Governor General鈥檚 Literary Award-winning author and Officer of the Order of Canada.
Her challenge in The House the Spirit Builds was not to explain the accompanying pictures of trees, flowers and water, 鈥渂ecause they didn鈥檛 need any more language to make them more vivid,鈥� Crozier said. Her job was to expand upon what they were suggesting, but couldn鈥檛 say visually.
The book features poems that are ostensibly about nature. But there are several deviations from the theme, Crozier said, including A Small Ambition, which is about 鈥渘ot wanting a body anymore, wanting to be able to go beyond the human.鈥�
The poem is about her late husband, the esteemed author and poet Patrick Lane, who died March 7 after a long illness, three weeks shy of his 80th birthday.
鈥淭hat had a lot to do with what Patrick and I were going through the last years of life,鈥� Crozier said. 鈥淚 thought the poems were a relief from my worries and concerns about Patrick, but when I did the final proofing for the book, I thought there was a sense of impending loss in a lot of the poems. They were speaking about something I didn鈥檛 even know the poems were addressing when I was writing.鈥�
The House the Spirit Builds was completed while Lane was alive, and he offered his editing advice on each one 鈥� which would have been difficult if either of them grasped the full scope of what she had written, Crozier said.
鈥淗e didn鈥檛 say: 鈥楲orna, these poems are too sad.鈥� I don鈥檛 know why neither of us read into that, but we didn鈥檛 at the time.鈥�
Crozier said she now realizes how deep their day-to-day connection was. Life as an independent person, Crozier admitted, often feels incomplete.
Lane鈥檚 memory will not fade, which is good in one respect, but sad in another. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not just a particular restaurant we were fond of, it鈥檚 the garden, it鈥檚 everywhere in Sidney, everywhere that Patrick walked,鈥� she said.
She is doing double duty on the tour circuit at the moment, promoting two books: The House the Spirit Builds and God of Shadows, which was released last year.
Crozier had to cancel her 2018 book tour in support of God of Shadows due to Lane鈥檚 ill health. She is now making good on her commitments from last year.
鈥淚 cancelled all of my invitations, because I didn鈥檛 want to leave Patrick alone. Now, not only do I have a new book [to promote], but the festivals have all invited me back to promote God of Shadows. So I鈥檓 juggling two books right now.鈥�
Though she retired from her teaching position at the University of Victoria four years ago, after 25 years at the school, Crozier still keeps in contact with many of her former students, some of whom 鈥� Esi Edugyan, Steven Price, Shane Book, Melanie Siebert and Carla Funk 鈥� have established literary careers.
When she thinks of the impact she and Lane had on students over more than 20 years at UVic, mentoring many of the same students in the writing department, it brings a smile to her face. Somewhere else, she imagines it is doing the same for Lane.
