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Winter
Book by Lane, Patrick
- GenresPoetry
45 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1990
1 person is currently reading
8 people want to read
About the author
Patrick Lane
85 books39 followersPatrick Lane was born in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada, on March 26, 1939. He has no formal education beyond high school in Vernon, B.C. From 1957 to 1968 with his young wife, Mary, he raised three children, Mark, Christopher, and Kathryn, and began working at a variety of jobs, from common labourer, truck driver, Cat skinner, chokerman, boxcar loader, Industrial First-Aid Man in the northern bush, to clerk at a number of sawmills in the Interior of British Columbia. He has been a salesman, office manager, and an Industrial Accountant. In 1968 his first wife divorced him. Much of his life after 1968 has been spent as an itinerant poet, wandering over three continents and many countries. He began writing with serious intent in 1960, practicing his craft late at night in small-town western Canada until he moved to Vancouver in early 1965 to work and to join the new generation of artists and writers who were coming of age in the early Sixties.
In 1966, with bill bissett and Seymour Mayne, he established Very Stone House, publishing the new post-war generation of poets. In 1968, he decided to devote his life exclusively to writing, travelling to South America where he lived for two years. On his return, he established a new relationship with his second wife, Carol, had two more children, Michael and Richard, and settled first in the Okanagan Valley in 1972 and then in 1974 on the west coast of Canada at Middle Point near the fishing village of Pender Harbour on The Sunshine Coast where he worked as a carpenter and building contractor. In 1978, he divorced and went to work as Writer-in-Residence at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg where he began his life with the poet, Lorna Crozier. Since then, he has been a resident writer at Concordia University in Montreal, The University of Alberta in Edmonton, the Saskatoon Public Library, and the University of Toronto. He taught English Literature at The University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon from 1986 to 1990, and Creative Writing at the University of Victoria, British Columbia from 1991 to 2004. He is presently retired from institutional teaching and leads private writing retreats as well as teaching at such schools as The Banff Writing Workshops, ‘Booming Ground’ at the University of British Columbia, The Victoria Writing School, and The Sage Hill Experience in Saskatchewan. He and his wife, Lorna Crozier, presently reside in a small community outside Victoria where he gardens and works at his craft.
His poetry, short stories, criticism, and non-fiction have won many prizes over the past forty-five years, including The Governor-General’s Award for “Poems: New & Selected” in 1979, The Canadian Authors Association Award for his “Selected Poems” in 1988, and, in 1987, a “Nellie” award (Canada) and The National Radio Award (USA) for the best public radio program for the script titled “Chile,” co-authored with Lorna Crozier. He has received major awards from The Canada Council, The Ontario Arts Council, The Saskatchewan Arts Board, The Manitoba Arts Board, The Ontario Arts Council, and the British Columbia Arts Board. He has received National Magazine awards for both his poetry and his fiction. He is the author of more than twenty books and he has been called by many writers and critics “the best poet of his generation.”
As a critic and commentator, he appears regularly on CBC, the national radio service in Canada, and on numerous other media outlets across Canada.
He has appeared at literary festivals around the world and has read and published his work in many countries including England, France, the Czech Republic, Italy, China, Japan, Chile, Colombia, the Netherlands, and Russia. His poetry and fiction appear in all major Canadian anthologies of English literature. A critical monograph of his life and writing titled "Patrick Lane,” by George Woodcock, was published by ECW Press.
In 1966, with bill bissett and Seymour Mayne, he established Very Stone House, publishing the new post-war generation of poets. In 1968, he decided to devote his life exclusively to writing, travelling to South America where he lived for two years. On his return, he established a new relationship with his second wife, Carol, had two more children, Michael and Richard, and settled first in the Okanagan Valley in 1972 and then in 1974 on the west coast of Canada at Middle Point near the fishing village of Pender Harbour on The Sunshine Coast where he worked as a carpenter and building contractor. In 1978, he divorced and went to work as Writer-in-Residence at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg where he began his life with the poet, Lorna Crozier. Since then, he has been a resident writer at Concordia University in Montreal, The University of Alberta in Edmonton, the Saskatoon Public Library, and the University of Toronto. He taught English Literature at The University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon from 1986 to 1990, and Creative Writing at the University of Victoria, British Columbia from 1991 to 2004. He is presently retired from institutional teaching and leads private writing retreats as well as teaching at such schools as The Banff Writing Workshops, ‘Booming Ground’ at the University of British Columbia, The Victoria Writing School, and The Sage Hill Experience in Saskatchewan. He and his wife, Lorna Crozier, presently reside in a small community outside Victoria where he gardens and works at his craft.
His poetry, short stories, criticism, and non-fiction have won many prizes over the past forty-five years, including The Governor-General’s Award for “Poems: New & Selected” in 1979, The Canadian Authors Association Award for his “Selected Poems” in 1988, and, in 1987, a “Nellie” award (Canada) and The National Radio Award (USA) for the best public radio program for the script titled “Chile,” co-authored with Lorna Crozier. He has received major awards from The Canada Council, The Ontario Arts Council, The Saskatchewan Arts Board, The Manitoba Arts Board, The Ontario Arts Council, and the British Columbia Arts Board. He has received National Magazine awards for both his poetry and his fiction. He is the author of more than twenty books and he has been called by many writers and critics “the best poet of his generation.”
As a critic and commentator, he appears regularly on CBC, the national radio service in Canada, and on numerous other media outlets across Canada.
He has appeared at literary festivals around the world and has read and published his work in many countries including England, France, the Czech Republic, Italy, China, Japan, Chile, Colombia, the Netherlands, and Russia. His poetry and fiction appear in all major Canadian anthologies of English literature. A critical monograph of his life and writing titled "Patrick Lane,” by George Woodcock, was published by ECW Press.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 28, 2022
The generosity of snow, the way it forgives
transgression, filling in the many betrayals
and leaving the world
exactly as it was. Imagine a man
walking endlessly and finding his tracks,
knowing he has gone in a circle. Imagine
his disappointment. See how he strikes out again
in a new direction, hoping this way
will lead him out. Imagine how much
happier he will be this time with the wind
all around him, the wind filling in his tracks.
He is thinking of that man,
of what keeps him going.
The thought of snow,
small white grains sifting
into the holes where his feet went,
filling things in,
leaving no room for despair.
* * *
The magpies wait in the bare tree.
They cry out for the dead.
There is no food
in this place where nothing moves.
This is what he likes. All this hunger
and nowhere to hide.
* * *
He imagines a horse walking in snow,
consuming time
on the perimeter, going from post to post
wondering if the wire
will have fallen this time around.
That is what patience is, dumb beasts
repeating the random, going
in the direction of the greatest resistance
without even hope to guide them. It is why
he has to imagine magpies on the fenceposts,
hungry, knowing the flesh is
its own cage, insisting on it, demanding
a solution to all this dumb dreaming.
* * *
If the word companion is made out of the idea of bread,
the ritual of sharing, the gift given
when there is only enough for one, is absence
the idea of cold? Is the space in the room
where the tree was decorated for worship
only a configuration, a chemical
map in the mind, something there that is not?
No wonder Cassandra came from a warm place.
No wonder no one believed her.
transgression, filling in the many betrayals
and leaving the world
exactly as it was. Imagine a man
walking endlessly and finding his tracks,
knowing he has gone in a circle. Imagine
his disappointment. See how he strikes out again
in a new direction, hoping this way
will lead him out. Imagine how much
happier he will be this time with the wind
all around him, the wind filling in his tracks.
He is thinking of that man,
of what keeps him going.
The thought of snow,
small white grains sifting
into the holes where his feet went,
filling things in,
leaving no room for despair.
- Winter 1, pg. 1
* * *
The magpies wait in the bare tree.
They cry out for the dead.
There is no food
in this place where nothing moves.
This is what he likes. All this hunger
and nowhere to hide.
- Winter 12, pg. 12
* * *
He imagines a horse walking in snow,
consuming time
on the perimeter, going from post to post
wondering if the wire
will have fallen this time around.
That is what patience is, dumb beasts
repeating the random, going
in the direction of the greatest resistance
without even hope to guide them. It is why
he has to imagine magpies on the fenceposts,
hungry, knowing the flesh is
its own cage, insisting on it, demanding
a solution to all this dumb dreaming.
- Winter 23, pg. 23
* * *
If the word companion is made out of the idea of bread,
the ritual of sharing, the gift given
when there is only enough for one, is absence
the idea of cold? Is the space in the room
where the tree was decorated for worship
only a configuration, a chemical
map in the mind, something there that is not?
No wonder Cassandra came from a warm place.
No wonder no one believed her.
- Winter 34, pg. 34
November 20, 2023
The poems in this volume are each entitled "Winter", numbered 1 through 45. Forty-five ways of saying winter in its endless associations. Patrick Lane was living in Saskatoon at the time of this book's publication. A place where winter can be truly experienced, beautiful, dangerous, clearing the sky, sharpening the senses. Nostril hairs freezing on the first inhale in the open air. Lane's strong attachment to the land and all living things is paramount in these poems. Stunning images are interwoven with thoughts, remembrances and strong emotions, from grief to love to gratitude. This poet has a magical way of endowing what he sees in nature with human qualities. Read his lines aloud and you know his meaning, as in "Winter 25": The hoarfrost on the trees is a beauty / fog leaves when it is at last consumed / by cold, obscurity transformed into light, / the bright world the heart knows upon waking.
December 16, 2023
Some wonderful poems. Musing quality to them. I found myself wishing for variation (form, etc). But they work well together; the voice of every poem shares a common chill.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews