In this wide-ranging collection of essays Tanis MacDonald walks the reader down many paths, pointing out the sights, exclaiming over birds, sharing stories and asking questions about just who gets to walk freely through our cities, parks and wilderness. Deer move mysteriously through these essays, knowing just when they vanish from sight, as do predators, both human and animal. She walks to begin to understand the place she now calls home in Southern Ontario, catalogues the fauna around her in FaunaWatch and continues walking through illness. From a child spotting a snowy owl on her way to school in Winnipeg, to a young woman watching her own distinctive walk be imitated in an acting class, to a worried daughter helping her mother relearn how to walk after a bad fall on a busy road, MacDonald shares how walking has shaped her life and the lives of many others. Wry, smart, political and lyrical, these essays share the joy of walking as well its danger and uncovers the promise it offers – of healing, of companionship and of understanding.

Tanis MacDonald is the author of two books of poetry: Fortune (2003) and Holding Ground (2000), and is the winner of the 2003 Bliss Carman Poetry Prize. She has published articles on the poetry of P.K. Page, Lorna Crozier, and Anne Carson. She teaches English at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.

Di Brandt’s poetry titles include questions I asked my mother (1987), Agnes in the sky (1990), Jerusalem, beloved (1995), and most recently, Now You Care (2004). She has received numerous awards for her poetry, including the CAA National Poetry Prize, the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award, and the Gerald Lampert Award. Di Brandt recently returned to the Manitoba prairies, her home, after a decade away, to take up a Canada Research Chair in Creative Writing at Brandon University.

Tanis MacDonald's profile page

• Commended, Alanna Bondar Memorial Book Prize

"A flaneuse for all seasons, MacDonald treks across much territory, walking the talk, and talking the walk. [...] She writes through looking glasses, leaves, and grass, holding ground, lines, and lives of daughters who converge in elegiac and witty ways."

Miramichi Reader

"Bringing her keen poet’s eye to the essay form, her approach is lyrical and wide-ranging, examining the privileges and exclusions of the simple stroll, and asks us to consider who gets to navigate the world freely and who does not."

Quill & Quire

"This contemplative rendition on walking stands apart from what has come before it — books on fitness, pilgrimage, adventure. It is about walking the best one can in the circumstances. It is relatable and triumphant."

Winnipeg Free Press

"So much of what Tanis MacDonald’s Straggle: Adventures in Walking While Female does is make a reader think about how identity, personal agency, self-reflection, oppression, gender, violence, equity, diversity, and colonization can all be tied to the physical act of women walking, speaking, and taking up their rightful space."

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