Dust on my boots, a black
stream edged with ice,
and the whistle of the pika,
so unadorned and fierce
it tugs at the sky
where the cranes kettle
always on the verge
of an alphabet.
Excerpted from “Mountain Walking”
in Auguries (Brick Books, 2017)
© Clea Roberts
Whether speaking of erotic love, domestic life, spiritual wilderness, or family entanglements, the poems of Auguries, the much-anticipated second collection from Yukon poet Clea Roberts, are saturated with their northern landscape. Roberts is well versed in the distances and dynamics between tedium and ecstasy, light and dark, isolation and solitude, freeze and thaw, flow and stillness. Written during a period in which Roberts both became a parent and lost a parent, the poems in Auguries lend themselves to prayer, surrender, celebration, reconciliation, meditation, and auspice.
You can find this book at your local bookstore, through online retailers or at your library. Also available in Kindle format. German language edition forthcoming with Edition Rugerup.
“Clea Roberts writes poems of clear, quiet beauty. They contain the silence of perception: alive to the world with open eye and open heart.”
“Clea Roberts’ second poetry collection, Auguries, is a stellar depiction of grief amidst the brightness of new life... Roberts is mistress of the line break, creating breathtaking stanzas—even whole poems—that read like runes.”