Acclaimed Poet Lorna Crozier Visits our Class

"I write and I read because I want to hold another human being close to me."
Lorna Crozier

Thursday's class was special. Our guest was Lorna Crozier, an internationally acclaimed writer and poet. She has been writing for more than 30 years and is the Chair of the Department of Writing at the University of Victoria.

Her awards include:

the Governor General's Award for Poetry
the Pat Lowther Award
National Magazine Gold Medal
Canadian Authors' Association Award
CBC Literary Competition

In introducing her, our teacher, Donna Kane, said that Lorna has the gift of clear thought and words and has it in spades. Her keen attention to craft and hard work over thirty years has brought her recognition both nationally and internationally.


She read from her memoir, Small Beneath the Sky. She describes "First Causes" that prairie dwellers and Peace Country dwellers are familiar with: light, wind, dust, gravel. Her writing is lyrical and struck a chord in this long-time Peace Country denizen. She said that when the book was first proposed to her, she thought it was "arrogant to write a memoir," but she began to see that it was not really about her but about "the influence of the landscape of your birth on your character."

Then the poems! She read several from "The Sex Lives of Vegetables," avoiding the ones that got her in hot water when she appeared on Peter Gzowski's radio show. Ah, now I've got your interest. She was inspired by baking a sweet potato. Check them out in The Garden Going on Without Us (1985). You'll never think of vegetables in the same way again!

Following the reading, there was a question-and-answer period. Lorna said she writes to serve the reader. "You write a poem and send it off into the world on its own; you give it a set of wings or feet. When readers enter it, they should smell, feel, touch what the writer has felt."

Words and language are the tools of poets and Lorna said we need to try to get "as close as we can to say what we want to say." Although some people--warmongers and politicians--may use words to twist meaning and "obfuscate" intention, Lorna wants to "open doors into feeling and thought."

One piece of advice she gave is to "be someone who sees things." From that, I take it that poetry hovers around us all the time. Or maybe it's just the inspiration for poems that is airborne. Regardless, we must be observant and reflective.

That all sounds a bit airy-fairy, but Lorna said she believes "155% in technique." She teaches at UVic and says there are many things about poetry that can be taught: cadence and rhythm, for example. "If there's no music in poetry, there's no poetry."

One of the poet's job is to "make a noun feel as if it has the 'oomph' of a verb." Too, the way the lines are laid out on the page can "unsentence the sentence as no other genre can."

In closing, Lorna read a poem, "Mildred," which was a special request from someone in the audience.

We use what we know to find out and explain what we don't know. Poetry is one of the tools that can help us in our search for who we are as humans. One way of creating the unknown from the known is to "estheticize your life."

Here is a link to Lorna Crozier's web site. Watch for her new book of poetry coming out in March 2011.