Sid Marty is a poet, author and musician based near the communities of Pincher Creek and the Crowsnest Pass. He is the author of five books of poetry and five nonfiction works. Though best known as a nonfiction author, he began his career as a poet. His first book, Headwaters (1973 ) was published to widespread national acclaim. Over the years, he has continued to publish poems in books, school texts, anthologies and magazines. The culmination of all that dedication to the “crafte so longe to lerne” is this collection of poems both published and new.   These are poems, often strongly resonant of western speech, that celebrate all the vicissitudes of rural life, the loves and losses, the valleys and peaks of life on the prairies, foothills and in the mountains of Alberta and British Columbia.