The Last Show on Earth

Many of the poems in this book come out of me determination to write about the imperiled Pacific Ocean during my tenure as the City of Victorias Poet Laureate. During that time, I was also raising my special needs son and my mom and father-in-law both died. The writing expanded to other creatures on the planet, and the harm we are doing to them, through a collaboration with Robert Batemans paintings and through work with the Royal BC Museum and their National Geographic Photography display. The poem I wrote in response to Robert Batemans Circus Train, Night Hawks contains within it the metaphor of the train as an extinct creature moving along the prairie and I began to feel the train and the idea of circus caries the metaphorical context of what this book, and the poems in it, explore. That is, endangered animals, lost moments, and events as in circuses themselves, unusual or neurodiverse people who are circus performers, all contained within this endangered beast, the train, or the earth. I watched The Greatest Show on Earth as a child and feel The Last Show on Earth and apt title for a book exploring death, disability and the imperiled world.