The House the Spirit Builds

The House the Spirit Builds is a visual and poetic celebration of place  interpreted by two photographers, Diane Laundy and Peter Coffman, whose images inspired a collection of poems by Lorna Crozier.

Renowned poet Lorna Crozier offers a masterful collection of poems inspired by nature, this time set in the Frontenac Arch Biosphere Reserve in Southeastern Ontario.

One of eighteen biosphere reserves in Canada, the Frontenac Arch stands at the junction of the Canadian Shield and the St. Lawrence Valley and features some of Central Canada’s most characteristic landscapes as well as some of its most revered cultural heritage, all sensitively evoked by Lorna Crozier’s poetry and the photographs of Peter Coffman and Diane Laundy.

The House the Spirit Builds explores human-crafted and natural landscapes from a variety of angles. An image of a slice of light falling across a tablecloth, three oranges in a red bowl, a black beetle on a leaf: poems that speak of moments “when the dragonfly lands and grips the skin / on the back of your hand” or “rain stops falling / but / hangs around / like the shape of lust / in bedsheets”—the impressions and expression vary, but all are informed by sense of place and aim to take understanding to a more visceral plane.

Copies of the book can be purchased at Novel Idea in Kingston, Perfect Books in Ottawa or at Amazon or Indigo.

Ten framed images and poems from the book are available in a limited edition of 5. Contact us for inquiries about the images.