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.

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.

Published in Partnership with the David Suzuki Institute

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.

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.

Published in Partnership with the David Suzuki Institute