Kirjahaku

“What interests me in poetry is the interplay of language, the page, and silence. Heaven falls out of words because possibility is in the page, another kind of heaven; I wonder if that’s the only heaven we are given to know in life.” -- Edward Dickinson (Ted) BlodgettE.D. Blodgett’s final volume of poems, Walking Into God, is the culmination of the poet’s lifelong devotion to a poetry and poetics of the sacred. His mastery of craft, including cadence and sustained musicality, is unsurpassed in Canadian literature. Though this volume is divided into two parts (or sequences), these compressed poems present as a single long poem that explores the processes of walking, moving, changing, and evolving within a unified field.

Blodgett wrote his poems for a small park in English and some in French, but was able to have some of them translated into Cree, Michif, Chinese, and Ukrainian. This reflects Edmonton's unique multicultural ambience and the roles of diverse cultures in the making of the city.The powerful images and thoughtful metaphors in these short lyrics show readers the connections between Canadian nature (even within city limits) and the sublime, especially in the overwhelming silence we can sense outdoors – if we pay attention. The poet speaks to change by helping us see natural phenomena around us in a different light each time we read his poems.