'On Wonder' | ISBN 978 1 763653 078 | 94 pgs | December 2024 | $22
Vanessa Proctor writes poetry of the small, the still, the lucid.
Each poem encompasses the luminosity of finely-honed sensory
perception, an intimacy of living with minutely observed details
of nature and time. In these poems, language crackles with life,
and understated observations glean quiet, satisfying metaphors.
On Wonder is a fine, deeply rewarding first collection.
– Marcelle Freiman
Vanessa Proctor’s expertise as a gifted writer of contemporary
haiku is at work in this collection of poems, On Wonder, in their
concision and lack of artifice. Travelling across the many forms
of wonder – awe, reverence, amazement, admiration, curiosity
– the poems resonate with lovingly observed details. From the
familial and domestic, visceral childhood memories, museums,
galleries and gardens, the lives of friends and strangers, and
particularly the richness and solace of the natural world – they
are celebrations of this moment/ this here, this now. These
poems will open your mind, stir your senses and cause you to
slow down and take the time to be attentive to the wonders to
be found in the most ordinary days, to become, like the poet,
a student of small things. Like the poet’s old violin, they sing
and sing and sing!
– Lyn Reeves