Poetry in Motion: Rhona McAdam + Larder

In Larder, her seventh poetry collection, Rhona McAdam examines our complicated relationships with food, the natural world and our own mortal bodies. With grace, humour and skilled observation, these finely honed poems both inform and unsettle.Fully immersed in the organic world, Larder is at once an elegant transcription of the spiritual nourishment that comes from our embrace of the earth and of the inevitable loss in our unwillingness to embrace sustainability. In her latest collection, McAdam navigates the dark places of human movement through the earth and the exquisite intricacies lingering in backyard gardens and farmlands populated by insects and pollinators, all the while returning to the body, to the tune of staccato beats and the newly discovered symmetries within the human heart.

Hear Rhona McAdam read “Wild” from Larder:

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Rhona McAdam is a poet, food writer and holistic nutritionist. Born in Duncan, Vancouver Island, she began her writing career in Edmonton, Alberta, spent a dozen years working in London, UK, and studied food in Parma, Italy. She holds three master’s degrees—in Library & Information Science from the University of Alberta; Communications Planning from the University of Wolverhampton; and Food Culture & Communication from the University of Gastronomic Sciences (Slow Food’s university in northern Italy)—as well as a certificate in natural nutrition from the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition.She has a longtime passion for food and ecology, has worked as a cook and educator, and held a wide range of volunteer positions in food security, including fruit tree picker, grant writer, and many years with Haliburton Community Organic Farm in Victoria. After a career in information management, she now lives in Victoria where she teaches culinary classes and Eco-Nutrition at the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition.Her poems have appeared in literary journals and anthologies in Canada, the US, Ireland and the UK since the 1980s. Her ten poetry collections include the award-winning Hour of the Pearl, Old Habits (published simultaneously in the UK and Canada), Cartography and Ex-Ville. She is also the author of Digging the City, an urban agriculture manifesto.

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Thanks so much to Rhona McAdam for sharing “Wild” (and her serene backyard!) with us, and to Malaika at Caitlin Press for making the connection. As Rhona mentions, Larder is available now from fine independent bookstores across Canada, and here on All Lit Up.For more Poetry in Motion, click here.