BC Poetry 2017: "Crossing" by Alison Watt (Leaf Press)

Excerpt from "Crossing"

Cabo—
through the keyhole arch,
the horizon
where I have agreed to live
for the next year—

starting tomorrow (weather permitting):
blue tiled monastery, frescoed cloud,
I will enter
with my shorn braid
in a ziplock in my bunk,
my navigation instruments,
my trick heart

and my usual ambivalence.

Outside,
rip tides and rogue waves,

the whole Pacific breathing out and in.
The end is where we begin

to let go.

Who?

Alison Watt's poetry has appeared in many journals including Prairie Fire, Event, Sub-terrain, and Arc. She is also a painter who works and teaches out of her studio on Protection Island, near Nanaimo.

Her first book, The Last Island — a Naturalist's Sojourn on Triangle Island, won the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-fiction. Her book of poetry, Circadia, came out with Pedlar Press in 2005. She has a novel, Dazzle Patterns, coming out with Freehand Press next year.


What?

Crossing is long poem chapbook about sailing from Baja to the Marquesas, but it's really about seabirds, flying fish, sea, sun, stars, free wind and free will.


When?

Arrived November 2016.


Where?

Book Launches: Launched back in January!

Purchases: From the Leaf Press website. $30.


How?

Sailing to the Marquesas.

Leaf Press * About This Series * More Books, Please!

The copyrights of all poems included in the series remain with their authors, and are reprinted with the permission of the publishers.