Most Popular Books by Lorna Crozier

Lorna Crozier’s radical imagination, and the finely tuned emotional intelligence that is revealed in the clarity of her poetry, have made her one of Canada’s most popular poets. Before the First Word: The Poetry of Lorna Crozier is a collection of thirty-five of her best poems, selected and introduced by Catherine Hunter, and includes an afterword by Crozier herself. Representing her work from 1985 to 2002, the collection reveals the wide range of Lorna Crozier’s voice in its most lyrical, contemplative, ironic, and witty moments. Hunter’s introduction discusses the poet’s major themes, with particular attention to her feminist approach to biblical myth and her fascination with absence and silence as sites for imaginative revision. Crozier’s afterword, “See How Many Ends This Stick Has: A Reflection on Poetry,” is a lyrical meditation that provides an inspirational glimpse into the philosophy of a writer who prizes the intensity of awareness that poetry demands, and is tantalized by what predates speaking and all that cant be named. An engaging volume that will appeal to undergraduate students as well as general readers of poetry. Lorna Crozier’s work has won many awards, including the Governor Generals Award in 1992 (for Inventing the Hawk), the first prize for poetry in the CBC Literary Competition, the Canadian Authors Association Award for Poetry in 1992, a National Magazine Award in 1995, and two Pat Lowther Memorial Awards (1993 and 1996) for the best book of poetry by a Canadian woman. She has published fourteen books of poetry, most recently, Whetstone. Born in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, she now lives in British Columbia, where she is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Victoria.

A radiant collection of new poems from one of Canada''s most renowned and well-read poets. The poems in Lorna Crozier''s rich and wide-ranging new collection, a modern bestiary and a book of mourning, are both shadowed and illuminated by the passing of time, the small mechanics of the body as it ages, the fine-tuning of what a life becomes when parents and old friends are gone. Brilliantly poised between the mythic and the everyday, the anecdotal and the delicately lyrical, these poems contain the wit, irreverence, and startling imagery for which Crozier is justly celebrated. You’ll find Bach and Dostoevsky, a poem that turns into a dog, a religion founded by cats, and wood rats that dance on shingles. These poems turn over the stones of words and find what lies beneath, reminding us why Lorna Crozier is one of Canada’s most well-read and commanding voices.

A poetic board book that takes parents and caregivers through the familiar ritual of kissing baby from head to toe.

2024 Fred Cogswell Award for Excellence in Poetry, Third Place Winner From Lorna Crozier, the poet that Ursula Le Guin called a “truth teller” and “visionary,” comes a collection of soul-stirring poems that follow the death of a loved one. After That is a book written from the dark hollow we fall into when we lose those we love. Lorna Crozier’s sure poetry finds the words to engage with the grief that comes from the death of her partner, the writer Patrick Lane, whom she’d lived with for forty years, many of them tumultuous. With grace and precision, she illuminates sorrow. The light the poems cast travels far enough to reach anyone who has experienced loss. These pages engage us with many familiar yet magical things—not only paper wasps, but their libraries; not only herons, but their role as aging monks. Crozier takes us through the domestic and natural worlds into the cagey and metaphysical place we call the beyond. Without offering false comfort, the poems turn over our own grief so that we can catch a glimpse of the new life inside us again.

The celebrated poet hailed by Ursula K. Le Guin as a "storyteller, truth-teller, and visionary" gives us a mesmerizing new collection of poems that are funny, wise, moving, and surprising. How many gods can dance on the head of Lorna Crozier''s pen? The poet Lorna Crozier has always been brilliant at fusing the ordinary with the other-worldly in strange and surprising ways. Now the Governor General''s Literary Award-winning author of Inventing the Hawk returns with God of Shadows, a wryly wise book that offers a polytheistic gallery of the gods we never knew existed and didn''t know we needed. To read these poems is to be ready to offer your own prayers to the god of shadows, the god of quirks, and the god of vacant houses. Sing new votive hymns to the gods of horses, birds, cats, rats, and insects. And give thanks at the altars of the gods of doubt, guilt, and forgetting. What life-affirming questions have these deities come to ask? Perhaps it is simply this: How can poems be at once so profound, original and lively, and also so much fun?

In her newest collection, Lorna Crozier describes the passage of time in the way that only she can. Her arresting, edgy poems about aging and grief are surprising and invigorating: a defiant balm. At the same time, she revels in the quirkiness and whimsy of the natural world: the vision of a fly, the naming of an eggplant, and a woman who — not unhappily — finds that cockroaches are drawn to her. “God draws a life. And then begins to rub it out / with the eraser on his pencil.” Lorna Crozier draws a world in What the Soul Doesn’t Want, and then beckons us in. Crozier’s signature wit and striking imagery are on display as she stretches her wings and reminds us that we haven’t yet seen all that she can do.

Like the people and animals in her new collection, Lorna Crozier “defies / the anecdotal, / goes for the lyric, / music made from / bone and muscle and the grace notes” of life. The poems in The Wrong Cat are vintage Crozier: sly, sexy, irreverent, and sad, and populated by fully realized characters whose stories take place in a small lyrical space. We learn about a mother’s last breath, the first dog in heaven, a man’s fear that his wife no longer loves him, and the ways in which animals size up the humans around them and find them wanting. With Crozier’s celebrated mix of vibrant imagery, piercing observations, and deeply felt human emotions, these poems provide an affirmation in the midst of the fluid, often challenging nature of experience.

In a series of playful and startling prose meditations, celebrated writer Lorna Crozier brings her rapt attention to the small matter of household objects: everything from doorknobs, washing machines, rakes, and zippers to the kitchen sink. Operating as a sort of literary detective, she examines the mystery of the everyday, seeking the essence of each object. She offers tantalizing glimpses of the household''s inhabitants, too, probing hearts, brains, noses, and navels. Longing, exuberance, and grief color her reflections, which at times take on the tenor of folktales or parables. Each of the short portraits in The Book of Marvels stands alone, but the connections are intricate; as in life, each object gains meaning from its juxtaposition with others. Crozier approaches her investigations with a childlike curiosity, an adult bemusement, and an unfailing sense of metaphor and mischief. With both charm and mordant wit, she animates the panoply of wonders to be found everywhere around us and inside us.

A rhyming, illustrated board book for babies that explores all of the places that baby animals may live, including forests, caves, jungles, burrows and beyond.

"A tender, unsparing portrait of a family. It is also a book about place. In this splendid volume of recollections, award-winning poet Lorna Crosier charts the geography that shaped her character and her understanding of the world."--Page 4 of cover.

A lyrical board book that uses playful imagery to illustrate just how great a parent''s love is.

Over the course of a career spanning three decades, Lorna Crozier has become one of Canada’s most beloved poets, receiving high acclaim and numerous awards, including the Governor General’s Award, the Pat Lowther Poetry Award, and the Canadian Authors Association Award. Now, in this definitive selection of poems, which draws on her eight major collections and includes many of the poems for which she is justly celebrated, Crozier’s trademark investigations of family, spirituality, love’s fierce attachments, and bereavement and loss have been given a new framework. As a sapphire generates a blue light from within, The Blue Hour of the Day demonstrates Crozier’s dazzling capacity to bring depths to light, unfailingly and unflinchingly. It represents the best work of an icon of Canadian poetry.

"A testament to the miraculous beings that share our planet, The Wild in You is a creative collaboration between a lauded nature photographer and an internationally renowned poet. Inspired by the majestic and savage beauty of a place where forest and sea meet, Ian McAllister''s photographs and Lorna Crozier''s poetry come together to translate the fierce emotion of the wilderness into the language of the human heart. Featuring over thirty beautiful full-size photographs of wolves, bears, sea lions, jellyfish, and other wild creatures paired with original poems, The Wild in You challenges the reader to a deeper understanding of the connection between humans, animals, and our earth." -- Book jacket

The poems in No Longer Two People are a conversation between poets, exploring connections and the "vibration of life."

Renowned poet Lorna Crozier offers a masterful collection of poems inspired by Diane Laundy and Peter Coffman’s photographs taken in the Frontenac Arch Biosphere in Southwestern Ontario. Beginning in this setting, The House the Spirit Builds extends to include any region, any place that ignites the human mind and heart. Something astonishing happens when the poems and photos sit side by side and speak to one another in a language that is timeless, lucid and precise: they bring us to a wisdom that might mitigate the damage we do to others and the natural world. While acknowledging the loss and suffering that infuse our days, the poems and photographs invite us to expand our sense of wonder, our sense that all things are connected, no matter where we live. An image of a slice of light falling across a tablecloth, a black beetle on a leaf: these poems speak of moments “when the dragonfly lands and grips the skin / on the back of your hand” or “rain stops falling / but / hangs around / like the shape of lust / in bedsheets.” The impressions and expressions vary, but remind us that if we pay attention, even the smallest things can bring us joy and remind us we are not alone in our brief sojourn on this earth.

National-award-winning poet Lorna Crozier’s new collection of poems are peopled by the seasons and their elements, her beloved prairies, sorrow, joy, and the dead. Central to their themes are revisitations of family and marriage, and the land-death that is drought. Universal, deeply moving, crowded with breathtaking imagery, these are darkly resonant poems of middle age: alert to the beauty in loss, cherishing the humanity that is whetted on that stone. This is Lorna Crozier, one of Canada’s most highly celebrated poets, at the top of her form.

The Garden Going On Without Usis Lorna Crozier''s sixth collection of poems, and is a book of rare virtuosity. Her poetry is sensual, pragmatic, linked to the women and men about her – people who live rather than simply name their lives. She often writes about the Prairies – a vast land that bleaches human and animal bones alike, but one that contains gardens in which people and plants are cultivated, and houses which are places of love-making, warmth, and rage. Her keen ironic tone is balanced by a certain romanticism. As a lyric poet, she has a wide range of tone and style.

While far-reaching in their universal truths, the poems in this extraordinary and moving book come together as a compelling narrative. Some of the poems trace the lives – from conception to death – of two families: Crozier’s own family and that of another, shadow family, trapped in a darker, unrelenting world. While more serious than her earlier collections, it still celebrates the joys of living as only she can do, and reminds us of the transcendent resonance of each breath we take.

The poems in this haunting new book are both playful and provocative, witty and intimate. Central to the collection is a powerful elegy for her father. Beginning with his death, it moves back in time to the author''s childhood in a small Saskatchewan community. Inventing the Hawk reveals the small pleasures of day-to-day life, sometimes visited by “Angels” who offer a novel, often shocking perspective on reality. As well, Crozier translates love and the experience of loss into a language resonant with desire and longing. A language that speaks to the most private aspects of ourselves. This is poetry that will change the way we look at our lives.

Where can you find animal babies? Why, nearly everywhere! Perfect for babies and toddlers, this adorable board book features a wide variety of baby animals and explores all of the places they live, from bays to burrows and beyond. With colorful, easy-to-turn pages, this book is an essential addition to any little one’s library. Upbeat, rhyming text from award-winning poet Lorna Crozier creates a joyful reading experience, and warm, cheerful illustrations are sure to make the book a favorite.

Balloons love the moon, and a tuba loves a tune, but these don''t compare to the love we have for you. Award-winning poet Lorna Crozier uses evocative rhyme, complemented by Rachelle Anne Miller''s whimsical imagery, to provide babies and toddlers with common concepts that explain just how great love is.

Lorna Crozier’s new collection contains a community of poems whose words are lit from within. The book is a home that holds children and adults, the living and the dead. It is a brilliant gathering of poems with a richly dark seam of terrors, populated with lovers, friends, and relations both difficult and dear. Among its other loves are mimulus, prickly pear, a cockatoo, a stallion, “lilacs, literal and magical,” Waskesieu, and carpenter ants in leather aprons. Details, surfaces, shine in these poems which are nevertheless “obsessed with the invisible.” They move with great tenderness through the luminous quotidian, and, still deeply respecting the literal, shift into myth. The breadth and warmth ofEverything Arrives at the Lightwill confirm and extend Lorna Crozier’s reputation as one of Canada’s most popular and accomplished poets.

A Globe and Mail 100 Best Book Finalist, Hilary Weston Writers'' Trust Prize for Nonfiction Finalist, City of Victoria Butler Book Prize A deeply affecting portrait of a long partnership and a clear-eyed account of the impact of a serious illness, writing as consolation, and the enduring significance of poetry from one of Canada''s most celebrated voices. When we ran off together in 1978, abandoning our marriages and leaving wreckage in our wake, I was a "promising writer," Patrick had just won the Governor General''s Award. I was so happy for him, and I''ve continued to be every time an honour comes his way, but I knew if I didn''t grow, if I remained merely someone who showed potential, we wouldn''t last. I swore I wouldn''t play the dutiful wife, cheerleader, and muse of the great male writer, and he didn''t envision a partner like that. We aspired to flourish together and thrive in words and books and gardens. When Lorna Crozier and Patrick Lane met at a poetry workshop in 1976, they had no idea that they would go on to write more than forty books between them, balancing their careers with their devotion to each other, and to their beloved cats, for decades. Then, in January 2017, their life together changed unexpectedly when Patrick became seriously ill. Despite tests and the opinions of many specialists, doctors remained baffled. There was no diagnosis and no effective treatment plan. The illness devastated them both. During this time, Lorna turned to her writing as a way of making sense of her grief and for consolation. She revisited her poems, tracing her own path as a poet along with the evolution of her relationship with Patrick. The result is an intimate and intensely moving memoir about the difficulties and joys of creating a life with someone and the risks and immense rewards of partnership. At once a spirited account of the past and a poignant reckoning with the present, it is, above all, an extraordinary and unforgettable love story. Told with unflinching honesty and fierce tenderness, Through the Garden is a candid, clear-eyed portrait of a long partnership and an acknowledgement, a tribute, and a gift.

Angels of Flesh, Angels of Silence, Lorna Crozier’s seventh book of poetry, reinforces her stature as one of the most prolific and respected contemporary poets of our time. Her poems are witty, unassuming, yet intimate and provocative. Through her extraordinary vision, Crozier writes into existence a world that is both distinctively her own and instinctively familiar to all her readers. These are poems of mourning and celebration, of poignancy and good humour. And they demonstrate why Lorna Crozier’s work lays claim on both the head and the heart. The poems in the section “Angles of Silence” won first prize for poetry in the CBC Radio Literature Competition for 1987-88, and were broadcast on “State of the Arts.” The Chilean poems were aired on “State of the Arts” as part of a radio script written with Pat Lane, which won the Best Program Award at the National Radio Awards, 1988. “Fear of Snakes” won second prize inPrism International’s poetry competition.

Poems inspired by the fictitious character Mrs. Bentley in Sinclair Ross''s novel As for me and my house.

In her twelfth collection, Lorna Crozier offers us startlingly original and profoundly humane revisionings of familiar Biblical figures and events. Her purpose is anything but sectarian, though these are poems rooted in elemental truths of land, light, and the human heart. The compassion and psychological insight that have made her one of Canada’s most beloved poets are here in force, shot through with wit and intelligence, rendered in a lithe, tensile line. This is vintage Crozier: tales of beginning and of ending, sharp, sweet, heretical, and deeply true. The remarkable closing sequence, “Book of Praise,” was commissioned for broadcast by the CBC, and aired to public acclaim in the spring of 2000.

This pocketsized paperback is one of the twentyfour titles published for 2017 Hong Kong International Poetry Nights. The theme of IPHHK2017 is "Ancient Enmity". IPNHK is one of the most influential international poetry events in Asia. From 22–26 November 2017, over 20 invited poets from various countries will be in Hong Kong to read their works based on the theme "ncient Enmity". Included in the anthology and box set, these unique works are presented with Chinese and English translations in bilingual or trilingual formats.

Chapbook of poetry by fifteen poets, written during a week at Wintergreen Studios with poet and teacher Lorna Crozier.

A chapbook of poetry produced by sixteen poets in the spring of 2017 at Wintergreen Studios, during a poetry workshop with Lorna Crozier.

In these remarkable poems, Lorna Crozier reveals the power of the ghazal to move the reader with insight and spiritual depth. In an afterword, Crozier illuminates the pursuit of the ghazal by some of Canada''s greatest poets.