Occupied World

Alice Major emigrated from Scotland at the age of eight, and grew up in Toronto before coming west to work as a weekly newspaper reporter. She served as the City of Edmonton’s first poet laureate from 2005–2007. A widely-published author, she has won many distinctions. Her most recent book, Intersecting Sets: A Poet Looks at Science, received the Wilfrid Eggleston Award for non-fiction as well as a National Magazine Award gold medal. Her website is www.alicemajor.com.

"The Occupied World is Alice Major's seventh collection, and it eloquently connects the public and private worlds of poetry. As a public poet, Major is completing a two-year term as the first poet laureate of Edmonton. Much of the book revolves around her private interest in subjects like ancient folk traditions, quantum physics, and number and string theory. Major uses simple declarative sentences as ways of framing poems, and unsentimental precision marks her style. "I Never Thought I'd Write a Hockey Poem" is perhaps the most public poem in the book, having been commissioned for public performance by the mayor of Edmonton and published in the Globe and Mail. It's about the Oiler's joyously improbable playoff run last spring." Maurice Mierau, Winnipeg Free Press, November 26, 2006

• Part I: Contemplating the City; Part II: A Book of Days; Part III: Kore; Part IV: Kinderszenen; Part V: Messages from Planet E; Part VI: Root Zones.