"Finding the right words for this place that has become home." That's the challenge identified by the Yukon's pre-eminent poet in this accomplished new collection. In the opening essay, Friis-Baastad describes his arrival in the Yukon as a 23-year-old fresh from Toronto, and his search for contemporary ways to evoke a landscape already mythologized by Jack London and Robert Service. These poems, written over three decades, provide ample evidence of his achievement. Taut, spare, haunting, they draw on both Old and New World influences to fashion a distinctively Canadian and circumpolar voice. They also reveal a pull between a chosen northern landscape and what the poet calls a "longing for distance from the beloved other." "Tell me," he says to the Yukon River, "as I hesitate here/while you/indulge yourself/in a marsh/will either of us/ever find ourselves/at the sea?" The publication of Wood Spoken is a landmark event in the Yukon literary scene. Its release will consolidate Friis-Baastad's reputation in the literary community and enable a wider readership to encounter an impressive body of work.

Born in Norway, Erling Friis-Baastad grew up in the United States, emigrated to Toronto in 1969, and moved to the Yukon in 1974. His earlier collection, The Exile House, was published by Ireland's Salmon Publishing in 2001. His poems have appeared in a number of chapbooks as well as in many literary journals and anthologies, including The Malahat Review, Grain, Poetry Canada and Canadian Forum. A longtime book reviewer and journalist, he currently works as an editor with the Yukon News in Whitehorse.

Erling Friis-Baastad's profile page