Shadowed with foretellings and premonitions, this collection of sometimes sombre, sometimes whimsical poems takes the reader on an odyssey whereby things bizarre, miraculous and bewildering can and often do happen. Where “Shellfish could fall from the skies, / summer and winter / congeal.” Whether drawing inspiration from urban life, the Tarot, atmospheric conditions, misadventure in Toronto, or hauntings in Scotland, Forecast presents a world permeated with the uncanny.
Today the ravine teems with life: / crows chase hawks, foxes hunt hares, / the dam overflows and something / shimmers between the trees. / Each blade of grass / aware of itself.
Clara Blackwood’s poetry creates images and patterns that embody the texture of reality. She makes structures incarnating the complexity of consciousness and the transfiguring power of memory. Her poems present the juxtaposition of the ancient and the modern, the appearance of the sacred in the mundane, the relation of nature to mind.
Len Gasparini
Each poem is a rite of passage between the pillars of light and shadow where old and new worlds converge. Blackwood distils fresh insights with clarity and conviction; and although the path is often perilous, we are assured “beauty persists,” that magic and mystery are at the root of creation.
Lea Harper