After That by Lorna Crozier

From Lorna Crozier, the poet that Ursula Le Guin called a “truth teller” and “visionary,” comes this new 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 most 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.

Story Locale: contemporary

Series Overview: McClelland & Stewart is committed to publishing work by Canadian poets whose work engages and excites, and who stand out because of the distinctiveness of their voices, their rigorous dedication to craft, and the scope of their imaginations.

LORNA CROZIER is the author of the memoir Through the Garden, a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction and a Globe and Mail 100 Best Book. She has published eighteen books of poetry, including God of Shadows, What the Soul Doesn’t Want, The Wrong Cat, Small Mechanics, The Blue Hour of the Day: Selected Poems, and Whetstone. She is also the author of The Book of Marvels: A Compendium of Everyday Things and the memoir Small Beneath the Sky, which won the Hubert Evans Award for Creative Nonfiction. She won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry for Inventing the Hawk and three additional collections were finalists for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry. She has received many awards and honours including the Canadian Authors Association Award, three Pat Lowther Memorial Awards, and the BC Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence. She is a Professor Emerita at the University of Victoria and an Officer of the Order of Canada, and she has received five honorary doctorates for her contributions to Canadian literature. Born in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, she now lives in British Columbia.

Author Residence: North Saanich, BC

Author Hometown: Swift Current, SK