The Girl in the Clock

The search for identity and the longing to belong to a particular part of this good earth are familiar themes. For settlers and their descendants, this can mean re-examining our collective history to unearth truth; seeking to understand colonization, to respect the treaties and to live a reconciled life. It can also involve unpacking family histories that mythologize and glorify pioneer experience.

In these poems we meet a young girl who escapes domestic tensions as she swings, rides and even flies out over her Wolseley neighbourhood where a huge sheltering tree grows right in the middle of the street. An angry old woman is a constant threat. The girl wishes she lived in the countryside where her father's family homestead used to be, but the farm has long been abandoned.

Change and loss are explored in the lives of individuals and also in the damage done to the earth. And yet our ability to observe, reflect and adapt can lead to a new awareness that is sometimes magical and often joyful.