A spellbinding evocation of the power of memory and the spirit of place

Set in the small farming community of Blomidon on Nova Scotia’s Bay of Fundy, The Blomidon Logs starts with tales of Glooscap and a leaky old cabin. Complete with the wild imagination of youth and rumours of a drowned artist, the book moves up the road to a new A-frame cottage and back in time to the generations who preceded the author at Blomidon, providing a rich heritage of farmland, beach, and stories. Taking its title from the logbooks kept by Dwyer’s parents, the collection is about childhood, family, and a time when summer meant freedom and outdoor play. The poems refer to the legends of the First Nations chief/god who once made his home at Blomidon and celebrate the work of farmers, loggers, and their families and predecessors who have made, and somehow still make, a living from the land.

Deirdre Dwyer has published poetry in numerous literary magazines across Canada, including The New Quarterly, McGill Street Magazine, Arc, Canadian Literature, Fireweed, Room of One's Own, Dalhousie Review, TickleAce, Windsor Review and others. Born in Nova Scotia in 1958, Dwyer has been writing poetry since her teacher taught her haiku in grade six. She has a B.A. from Dalhousie University where she studied Philosophy, and a M.A. in English and Creative Writing from the University of Windsor. She's worked as a bookseller, an instructor of English in Windsor, Ontario, a Second Language teacher in Tokyo, Japan, and a Creative Writing instructor in Halifax. Now a tutor at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, she spends her time in Halifax and in Musquodoboit Harbour, where she and her husband, Hans, are slowly finishing the interior of their house by the water.

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”If there is such a thing as summer poetry — where you drag your Muskoka chair into the July shade, and curl up to read the entire book in a single iced-tea gulp — The Blomidon Logs is it. Deirdre Dwyer's poetry is arresting and lyrical . . . Dwyers' poems seem to read themselves aloud, and the listener is transported back to the days of childhood storytelling and possibility.” — Scene Magazine, July 2017