No Ordinary Place - Softcover

Poetry. Pamela Porter's poems celebrate a world awaiting discovery. She opens this new collection with a poem entitled "An Offering" in which she brings to the ceremony "poems / for every season—of dreams born, / burning, broken" and, in particular, one that "begins like a perilous grace" to develop as "naked and tender and wanting." Throughout, one hears and sees images that connect both the poet and reader to other dimensions. Always for Porter, there is the moment tentatively coming into being where the mundane is transformed into something totally unexpected and otherworldly. The image can be one that develops from the natural world as in "Branches, Early Spring," where she sees how "the trees' red sap set the sky on fire." Another poem based in nature is "Naming" in which "small birds life into the sky / holding in their beaks / the words we don't need to say." Throughout, Porter's poems celebrate moments when we experience "the beginning of the world again."

Pamela Porter is the author of three previous collections of poetry: Cathedral, The Intelligence of Animals, and Stones Call Out. Her poems have garnered many accolades, including the 2010 Vallum Magazine Award for Poetry, the 2011 Prism International Poetry Prize, the Pat Lowther Award shortlist, and have been featured on Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac. Her novel in verse, The Crazy Man, won the 2005 Governor General's Award, the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award, the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award, and other prizes. M. Travis Lane has written, Porter's poems are pervaded with a sense of grace, of mercy, beauty and benediction.O She lives on Vancouver Island with her family and a menagerie of rescued horses, dogs, and cats.