The Ridge

A new collection from one of Canada’s finest contemporary poets. In The Ridge, Robert Bringhurst offers a work of nonfiction in poetic form, intensely focused on the ecological past, present and future of the West Coast of Canada.

At the book’s heart is a long poem, “The Ridge,” in which Bringhurst makes meticulous use of scientific language and, with a poet’s perspective and precision, translates abstract concepts into tangible and devastating imagery. Global energy consumption is measured in cords of wood instead of BTUs or megawatts; subatomic particles demarcating time and space are prayer flags tearing free in the slow destruction of the solar system. In dazzling prose that weaves together the physical and the metaphysical, Bringhurst shifts his attention from tiny spores to fish farms, the spirit world, telescopes and epistemology.

Beautiful, profound and insightful, The Ridge reflects the author’s reputation as one of Canada’s most esteemed poets.