Paper Wings

by Rosemary Clewes

Paper Wings is a collection of poems in five parts, seen through the lens of history, geography, familial loss and celebration. Whether travelling by icebreaker, kayak or on foot, or weaving memory into new landscapes of the heart, these poems incline to the marvellous and metaphysical. Each asks in different ways the "Where is home?" Re-inventing a father though his own World War One journal, in the group "Paper Wings," makes a home in the experience of loss, after illness. "Learning Walking" takes us to a world without walls in the Canadian Arctic where new identity comes through surprise. "Cutting Trails" puts down roots in the soil of affection and fear, while "The Eye's Imprint" journeys through decades, exploring the relationships of loss, adventure and risk. What begins as a game of "lost and found" with God, in "Silent Retreat," yields gradually to a "threshold of the already and not yet." The collection comes to the conclusion that home is found within our selves and without, anywhere, anytime.

95 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2014

About the author

Rosemary Clewes is a poet, nonfiction writer, photographer and artist. After many rich years as a social worker, a horsewoman, pianist, painter and printmaker, she settled for writing and poetry. Her extensive northern travel, forming a body of work in both poetry and prose, includes Once Houses Could Fly: Kayaking North of 79 Degrees (2012), and Thule Explorer: Kayaking North of 77 Degrees (2008). A crown of sonnets, also entitled "Thule Explorer" was nominated by The Malahat Review for the National Magazine Awards in 2006. In 2006, she was also a finalist in the CBC Literary Awards for the suite entitled, “Where Lemon Trees Bloom In Winter: Sojourn in Sicily.” A chapbook entitled Islands North and South is forthcoming. She has been published most recently in Arc Poetry Magazine, Descant Magazine, Queen’s Quarterly, The Dalhousie Review, Grain Magazine and The Fiddlehead. Living on the cusp of her personal frontiers is a recurring theme, and in prose and poetry she conducts a conversation with the land, seeking to understand her place in the larger order, and in the power and fragility of nature. She has rafted and kayaked some of the great rivers and fjords in western Canada and the Eastern Arctic. She lives in Toronto.