CoCoPoPro: Okanagan sunshine and Nancy Holmes’s The Flicker Tree

Our guided poetry tour now takes us away from the moody weather of the west coast to the protected Okanagan valley of BC, and its dry, sunny climate. Nancy Holmes’ collection of poetry, The Flicker Tree (Ronsdale Press, 2012), asks what it means to live not just in, but with, a place. Her poetry teases out the delicate connections between flora and fauna, and all in reference to her particular place, the Okanagan valley. The title poem has us stop, listen, and plug in to the immense energy and surprising messages that come from all around us. For some great reviews and readings of The Flicker Tree, see this one in the Coastal Spectator and the website of Shed Simas. This book was JUST shortlisted for the National League of Poets‘ Raymond Souster Award. Winners will be announced on June 8, 2013.

Q&A with Nancy Holmes 

What are you reading right now? 

I am reading Art and Sustainability by Sasha Kagan, Bluets by Maggie Nelson, Cornelia Hoogland’s Woods Wolf Girl, dipping into The Arcadia Project: North American Postmodern Pastoral edited by Corey and Waldrep, and grazing through a few murder mysteries in the evening before going to bed.

If you wrote a memoir what would it be called?

Reading in Bed

Where is the oddest place in which you have ever written (or been inspired to write) a poem?

Not sure what is oddest—the dentist’s chair or in the room where my child was taking an IQ test.

*****

Nancy Holmes has published several books of poetry: The Flicker Tree (Ronsdale, 2012), Mandorla (Ronsdale, 2005), The Adultery Poems (Ronsdale, 2002), Down to the Golden Chersonese: Victorian Lady Travellers (Sono Nis, 1991) and Valancy and the New World (Kalamalka Press, 1988). 

Nancy was born in Edmonton, AB, went to high school in Toronto, and to university in Calgary where she received her MA in English. She has lived in the Okanagan valley of British Columbia for many years and teaches Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia Okanagan. She is the mother of three grown-up sons and lives in Kelowna, BC.

_______*Edited from the original post, published on the LPG blog