Undiscovered Country is filled with soulful accomplished writing in a variety of lyrical modes, including the long poem. When someone we love dies, what we miss are their presences and particulars. In this new book Rempel journeys through the grieving process, exploring death and loss, and the “dark night of the soul”; through the filters of the geographies and seasons of northern BC. What he finds is an “undiscovered country.” Even the bright clouds in spring or the colours of fall, or an afternoon with his daughter, offer an opportunity for the poet to contemplate his existence and rework his worldview. In this new country, he finds a measure of hope, even in the darkest night; like a moon, illuminating a road by the river.

Al Rempel graduated from the University of British Columbia with a Bachelor of Science in Physics and a Bachelor of Education. In 2000 he attended the Victoria School of Writing after which time he began submitting poetry. He has since been published in The Malahat Review, Grain, and stonestone and anthologized in 4 poets, Rocksalt, Half in the Sun, The Forestry Diversity Project and Down in the Valley. He has built a cabin, chopped his own firewood and grown a garden in the bush, but now prefers to write in coffee shops and watch his daughter grow up.

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