VIEWS FROM THE NORTH

'We are flying directly into darkness, the dim polestar rides on the starboard wing, Orion and his blue gems freeze in the southwest.' (Paulette Jiles) Views from the North is a book about Canada, about travel and of leave-taking, of loss as much as longing, but a book, moreover, about this country -- reflected, albeit, off the inside lens of a tourist's shaded sunglasses.

Views from the North is a book of questions, more than latitudes. Is zipless sex the same, in Zambia? What is that barge on a canal in Burgundy? Does the same sun that rises on the temple at Khajuraho also burn the mist from the lilypads of Kay Graham's Algonquin Park?

Views from the North is about romance. It is about holy lands and silk roads, but it is also a book of return, of return not only to the native land but to that other land, the ancestral one, the land of the fathers -- to the Japan of Roy Kiyooka and the Poland of Sam Solecki.

Views From The North was published in 1997 by Black Moss Press.