Robinson’s Crossing by Jan Zwicky

The poems in this book arise from Robinson’s Crossing — the place where the railway ends and European settlers arriving in northern Alberta had to cross the Pembina River and advance by wagon or on foot. How have we crossed into this country, with what violence and what blind love? Robinson’s Crossing enacts the pause at the frontier, where we reflect on the realities of colonial experience, but also on the nature of living here — on historical dwelling itself. In long meditative narratives and shorter probing lyrics, Jan Zwicky shows us — as she has in her celebrated Lyric Philosophy and the Governor General’s award-winning Songs for Relinquishing the Earth — how music means and meaning is musical.