Colour of Winter Air

by Zoë Landale

reviews

“. . . free of fashionable affectations, and good at loud celebratory evocations of nature and its processes.” George Woodcock

“This is a big book and deserves to be more widely known. Landale has tremendous talent. One looks forward to seeing more of her books in future years.”

University of Toronto Quarterly

“There’s an unflinching eye in these poems, unflinching and intelligent and empathetic; there’s also a willingness to examine what is conditioned into our seeing. . . .a particular energy and density, as well as presence. Colour of Winter Air is a pleasure.”

Books in Canada

excerpt, poem

The Casual Assurance of Limbs

When I was a fisher,

safe   upon the certainty

of sea,

horizons were owned with

the casual assurance of limbs;

landmarks pulled   litheness of muscles;

diesel   with co-ordination.

Meals were cluttered with

cloud formations,

waves were recurrences

which probed through dreams like

long streamers   of kelp.

Everyone lied.

Between the weatherman and dockside bragging

sometimes it seemed

that only the fish, with their

protesting gape of death,

had anything at all to say.

There were balances.

Beneath the second skin of planking,

cared for more tenderly than flesh,

dark miles of water

spread arms   across the world.

Out of print.