Melanie Siebert's stunning debut collection travels remote northern rivers, as well as two of Canada's most threatened rivers, the Athabasca and the North Saskatchewan. These rivers push the poems into a contemplation of loss and into the terrain of Alexander Mackenzie's dreams, a busker's broken-down street riffs, and the borderland wanderings of a grandmother whose absence is felt as a presence. The poems' currents are turbulent, braided, submerged. Narrative streams appear like tributaries glimpsed through brush, and then veer into unexpected territories, where boundaries blur - between the self and the other, between the living and the dead, between the human and the wild - and loss carries with it both music and silence. In this virtuoso collection, Melanie Siebert has transformed language into that rarest thing, a singular poetic vision.

Current Deepwater Vee Bellanca Esker Alsek Lake Bridge to Shell's Albian Mine, Downstream, River Right Busker Busker Surf City Mackenzie 's Dream Choker Busker Skull Canyon Unnamed Creek Busker Mackenzie 's Dream Grandmother Grandmother Hell Roaring Creek Busker Grass Hills, River Left, Downstream of Battleford Grandmother The Limit of Travels in This Direction Busker Mackenzie, Having Not Seen a Star Since Leaving Athabasca Busker Shifting, Overrun, the Symptoms, the Shoals Building D'Aoust Esker Nadlok-place where the deer cross Map Unrolled on the Table Grandmother Letter to Kitty, Never Written Long After Leaving, Being Overtaken with the Consequences of Suffering in the Northwest Letter to Kitty, Never Written Letter to Kitty, Never Written Letter to Kitty, Never Written Letter to Kitty, Never Written Letter to Kitty, Never Written Dusk Windbound, Unnamed Camp Tlogotsho-big place of grass Double-Barrel Lake The Splits Notes Acknowledgements