Here Is Where We Disembark

With her remarkable debut collection, Yukon poet Clea Roberts proffers a perceptive & ecological reading of the Canadian North's past & present. Roberts deftly draws out the moments that comprise a cycle of seasons, paying as much attention to the naturalthe winter moon's second-hand light that pools in the tracks of tree squirrels & loose threads of migrating birdsas she does to the manufacturedhalf-melted ice lanterns & the peripheral percussion of J-brakes on the highway. She also casts her gaze back to the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897-1898, raising the voices of those marked by a frenetic race for fortune: a seductive, edgy wolf, a disillusioned photographer, and a pragmatic prostitute, among others.