Sarah de Leeuw’ s debut collection of poems, Geographies of a Lover is a book-length prose-poem that cunningly intertwines human sexuality and the Canadian landscape. Poet Nancy Holmes calls it a“ true eco-erotic text that fuses the lonel y carnality of the body with the vulnerable vastness of continental landscapes.” The book grew out of de Leeuw’ s graduate training as a geographer and her preoccupations with landscapes, feminist politics and literary expression. Her highl y original book is currently shortlisted for the Dorothy Livesay Award that recognizes the best book of poetry published by a BC writer in 2012. De Leeuw grew up in Port Clements and Terrace and currently lives in Prince George where she teaches at UNBC’ s Faculty of Medicine. Last week, the we had a con versation about her book. This is some of what she had to say.
ECO-EROTIC POETIC POLITICS Sarah de Leeuw’ s Geographies of a Lover
by Emily McGiffin
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Sarah de Leeuw’ s debut collection of poems, Geographies of a Lover is a book-length prose-poem that cunningly intertwines human sexuality and the Canadian landscape. Poet Nancy Holmes calls it a“ true eco-erotic text that fuses the lonel y carnality of the body with the vulnerable vastness of continental landscapes.” The book grew out of de Leeuw’ s graduate training as a geographer and her preoccupations with landscapes, feminist politics and literary expression. Her highl y original book is currently shortlisted for the Dorothy Livesay Award that recognizes the best book of poetry published by a BC writer in 2012. De Leeuw grew up in Port Clements and Terrace and currently lives in Prince George where she teaches at UNBC’ s Faculty of Medicine. Last week, the we had a con versation about her book. This is some of what she had to say.
EM: Congratulations on your nomination for a BC Book Prize. That’ s a fantastic accomplishment.
SdL: Thank you, I’ m really honoured. Northern British Columbia has a vibrant writing community and I feel very honoured to join suc h remarkable company as Ken Belford, Barry McKinnon and Gillian Wigmore— all of whom ha ve either w on or been nominated for the Dorothy Livesay award.
Overall, I’ ve had incredibly positive uptake of the book. There’ s a sense that maybe the time has come to write something deepl y sexual tha t simultaneously contemplates physical ecological geographies. In these early decades of the 21st centur y we are at a crossroads where human beings ha ve to under stand that the v ery planet that is us, which we are, is sitting with the potential of being lost. That should give us pause. It should demand of us that we think about ne w modes of expression. There’ s something breathless, something embodied about that potential loss and I’ ve chosen to express that through a particular language construction.
EM: Tell us mor e about the political stance underlying your work.
SdL: I orient to the world as a f airly political human. I’ ve been very actively involved for decades in what can broadly be conceptualized as feminist g rassroots movements. I used to coordinate a women’ s centre, I’ ve worked in aspects of the Kingston Prison for Women, I continue to work with the Elizabeth Fr y Society here in Prince George and I’ ve been a counsellor around domestic violence for years. I take very seriously the realities of violence, particularly against First Nations women and especially in northern British Columbia.
I believe very strongly that as writers we need to do work that somehow expands spaces for other v oices. One of the things that, for a number of years, has caused me to at least scratch my head, is what I perceive to be a remarkable lack of literar y space— particularly in Canada— for an expressly muscular, raw voice of women’ s sexuality. That has a lot of theoretical implications. I think that if as women we are unable to write and see ourselves represented in muscular, bold, sexual prose and poetry, we are always at risk of having a very important aspect