River of Your Days
by Elizabeth Carriere

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Experiences growing up on the Prairies and living in Winnipeg, Montreal and coastal British Columbia mesh with reflections from living and working in countries in the Global South affected by poverty, disasters and conflict. In this volume of contemporary freeverse poetry, Carriere celebrates the beauty, challenges and complexity of what she observes and experiences in intelligent, highly visual, often melodic poetry that invites the reader to engage creatively with it. One thing becomes another in her lines: night is a sparrow, “a brown shadow that eats/its own dark,/folds its radiant wings.” Her keen gaze finds, now a snake “noosing its beauty/around a leafless branch,” now fallen bodies on broken steps in a war zone, now a child, “mix of starfish and ash, small/ cockle tossed on the ocean’s froth.” Reflections on age, on war, on love and loss, are intertwined with a palpable passion for, and engagement with, the natural world.. River of Your Days will appeal to adult readers of all ages, backgrounds, and walks of life.

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As an emerging writer, Elizabeth Carriere was immersed in the vibrant Saskatchewan writers’ and broader arts communities. She was influenced by the creativity and activism of those communities, and her association with Canadian writers and artists generally. She was especially inspired by the leadership and imagination of her mother, Anne Szumigalski, to whom this volume is dedicated. When Carriere moved to Winnipeg, she became active in the Manitoba writing and arts community, and helped organize the Winnipeg Writers’ Workshop, pushing for stronger recognition of Manitoba writers. Together with colleagues, she was cofounder of Writers’ News Manitoba, which later developed into Prairie Fire. She participated in readings and events and had poems published in literary magazines such as Grain, Writers’ News Manitoba, and CVII. Carriere worked in Manitoba and British Columbia as a senior government official, and later as a senior diplomat in charge of development programs in South and South East Asia, the Caribbean, and Africa, for which she was awarded the OBE. She concluded her more than two decades overseas as Governor of the Caribbean Overseas Territory of Montserrat, and finally as Senior Regional Manager Central and East Africa with Care International, based in Rwanda. She lives on Gambier Island, British Columbia.

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Contributors

Author

Elizabeth Carriere

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