I've been a BC writer for over 50 years and Talonbooks has published most of my books of poetry, starting with Pictograms from the Interior of BC in 1976. My writing has been sustained, primarily, by two interests: racial hybridity and the local, the landscape of the Kootenays in southeasten BC.; its mountains, lakes, and forests. The book is a door dovetails both of these attentions and I'm pretty sure these themes, if not my particular style of writing, would also have pleased Dorothy Livesay who leaned on the local and the social for her poetry.

I'm especially happy to be nominated for and be awarded the BC Book Prize because BC is where I have lived my life and is home to all I've imagined as possible.

Karl and Christy Siegler, Kevin and Vicky Williams, and Greg Simpson at Talonbooks have all been more than just the publishers. Their care and warm friendship continue to make publishing a valuable and pleasurable experience. Karl is the only person, besides bpNichol, who has ever provided me with any real editorial sensibility, and I will always be grateful to him for his care, generosity, and sympathetic outrage.

Pauline Butling has shared more than a Kootenay heritage with me; she has been there from the beginning of my poetry and usually offers the first word of response, and that's only one of the things I love about her.

Besides the jury of peers, I also want to thank the BCTF and the BC Book Prize Association for their support of BC writing and publishing and particularly for the Book Prize's attention to the Book Prize tour into the other parts of the province, which, for me, is the real prize, that we can share our songs, images, and stories throughout our communities, friends, and relatives who also love this place.

Finally, I'd like to congratulate particularly the other finalists, as well as many other fine writers in BC who work at words to bring imagination and hope to all of us.