Overview

Written amid wildfires and atmospheric rivers, The Middle extends Stephen Collis's investigation of threatened climate futures into a poetics of displacement and wandering. The fulcrum of a trilogy begun with A History of the Theories of Rain, The Middle hikes the shifting treelines of our warming world to reflect on the way all life is on the move. Focusing on the human-plant relationship, each of The Middle's linked sequences employs various forms of citational practice, rooted in the idea of a ""poetic commons,"" a kind of literary seed dispersal where words are blown, carried, and scattered from one textual field to another, akin to all the plants and animals in motion on our dangerously heating planet.

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9781772016420

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Reviews

""This book is a dense, rich reflection on the natural world and … human impact. Collis considers poets and their writings, as woven in … a “poetic commons,” the current and historic ecology that poets and language’s evolution share. There is sorrow, there is hope … Stephen Collis sees the interweaving, seeks understanding, and expresses awe and awareness."" – Steven Ross Smith, The British Columbia Review

Author Information

Stephen Collis is the author of fifteen books of poetry and prose, including The Commons (2008), the BC Book Prize–winning On the Material (2010), and Almost Islands: Phyllis Webb and the Pursuit of the Unwritten (2018) – all published by Talonbooks. In 2019 Collis was the recipient of the Writers’ Trust of Canada Latner Poetry Prize. A History of the Theories of Rain (2021), a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for poetry, and The Middle (2024) are the first two volumes of a trilogy which the forthcoming Sweet Vernal Grass will complete. Knock Down House, an experimental memoir, was published by Pamenar Press in 2025. In 2026 Collis will deliver the Ralph Gustafson Distinguished Poet Lecture at Vancouver Island University. He lives on Burnaby Mountain, unceded Coast Salish Territory, and teaches poetry and poetics at Simon Fraser University.

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