Long before the current rise of eco-poetry, Steve Luxton was writing powerful and exquisitely crafted poems about and set in nature. An avid fisherman, canoeist and hiker, he has explored and recorded in memorable detail the region around his home in Quebec. This important collection brings together for the first time Luxton's best nature poems written over the last 35 years and includes new and previously unpublished work. Influenced by well-known fellow poets and Eastern Townshippers, F. R. Scott, Louis Dudek, Ralph Gustafson, and D.G. Jones, Luxton has developed a mature and authoritative voice uniquely his own. Rich in language and metaphor, these poems dazzle at times with their depth and dissolve the barrier between Man and Nature. With a true and finely honed poetic gift, Luxton vividly portrays the natural world's green particulars-what the Zen Buddhists term 'The Ten Thousand Things'. Unsentimentally Post pastoral and also post Romantic, Luxton employs his eyes, ears, heart, and mind, with non-appropriating eloquence.

Born in England, Steve Luxton immigrated as a child to Toronto, Canada. He gained a BA in Political Science and Economics from the University of Toronto, and an MA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University where he studied under the poets W.D. Snodgrass and Phillip Booth. He has taught literature and creative writing at Champlain, Vanier, and John Abbott Colleges, as well as at Bishop's and Concordia Universities. In addition to the chapbook, Torrent's Gate: Thomas Wolfe Visits Quebec, he has published five volumes of poetry: Late Romantics (with Robert Allen and Mark Teicher), The Hills that Pass By, Iridium, Luna Moth and Other Poems, and In The Vision of Birds. In recognition for his energetic support and promotion of English-language literature in Quebec, he was awarded the Quebec Writers' Federation's Judy Mappin Community Prize. He lives with his wife the poet Angela Leuck in the Eastern Townships' village of Hatley.

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