This Orchard Sound

by Terpstra, John

• ISBN13: 9781894987929
• ISBN10: 1894987926
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2014-09-01
• Publisher: Wolsak and Wynn Publishers Ltd

Summary

In This Orchard Sound, poet and woodworker John Terpstra takes the reader to an abandoned fruit orchard as it is being bulldozed. From the twisted limbs of apple, pear, and plum trees to cars dripping fluids far removed from the rain that once fell on the orchard grass, Terpstra asks questions of progress, grace, and the complicity of humanity in this short suite of poems. Only the birds answer his questions as he paces the old orchard, armed with his saw, gathering wood for his latest commission: a new cross for a local congregation.

Author Biography

John Terpstra is an award-winning poet and creative nonfiction writer. His poetry collections include Church Not Made with Hands; Disarmament, which was short-listed for the Governor General's Award; Forty Days and Forty Nights, which received the 1988 Bressani Prize for poetry; Naked Trees; and Two or Three Guitars. His The Boys, or Waiting for the Electrician's Daughter was short-listed for both the Charles Taylor Prize and the BC Award for Canadian Non-Fiction. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario.