Unsettled

Not since Al Purdy's North of Summer has a Canadian poet written so compellingly about life in the frozen arctic. The poems in Zachariah Wells' debut collection range through territories as vast as the north itself, from explorations of ancient myths to modern tales of courage and survival, from lyrical meditations on nature to searing poems about the daily grind of manual labour. This book reminds us why our nation's consciousness is pervaded by the idea of North: why we fear it and why we inhabit it, how it can be explored and colonized but never conquered, never truly settled.