Fast Commute

Here is a lament for places in flux, where industrial, commercial, or suburban development encroaches or invades. From Highway 401 to Refinery Row east of Edmonton, from Lake Ontario to the Fraser River, this long poemtakes aim at the structures that support ecological injustice and attempts new forms of expression grounded in respect for flora, fauna, water, land, and air. It also wrestles with the impossibility of speaking ethically about "the environment"as a settler living within and benefiting from the will to destroy that so often doubles as nationalism.

Following physical routes and terrains,Fast Commuteexists both within and outside the dissociative registers of colonialism and capitalism. This deeply engaging book offers a way to see, learn about, and live in relationship with other-than-human life, and to begin dealing with loss on a grand scale.

• Finalists announced for 2014 CBC Poetry Prize
• 22 books by past CBC Literary Prizes winners and finalists that came out in 2022

Laurie D. Graham is a writer currently based in Nogojiwanong, the territory of the Mississauga Anishinaabeg. Her debut book,Rove, was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for best first book of poetry in Canada. Her second book,Settler Education, was a finalist for Ontario's Trillium Award for Poetry.

Graham wasshortlisted for the 2014 CBC Poetry Prize.