Average Height of Flight

The poems in Average Height of Flight are founded in the landscape of coastal BC, built on the losses within the narrator's life in counterpoint to her walks in the natural world. In forests with her dog, along watersheds and hill climbs, Beth Kope goes off trail to find inspiration and time for meditation. She observes as the landscapes change with storms blowing through, absorbs the names of plants, finds sustained comfort whatever the season: crisp, clear days, rain is fine, or the snow that reveals the other creatures that share her routes. Kope invites the reader to join her on these walks and meditations on grief. The metre of feet and heartbeat creates a cadence of solace, but lovingly follows the nose of a dog.

Beth Kope grew up in Alberta and is honoured to live, work, and play in Victoria, BC, Coast Salish territory of Lekwungen and WSÁNEĆ nations. Kope has taught in Alberta, Adelaide, Australia and Quebec and currently works at Camosun College. She has published two poetry collections and has been included in the anthologies Refugium: Poems for the Pacific (Caitlin Press, 2017) and Sweet Water: Poems for the Watersheds (Caitlin Press, 2020). Kope’s first book, Falling Season (Leaf Press, 2010) detailed her mother’s decline due to an aggressive form of dementia called Lewy Body, which BC BookWorld described as “poems of honest dismay and almost unbearable sadness.” Her second book, Average Height of Flight (Caitlin Press, 2015), was a meditation on West Coast landscape and grief and a poem from the collection was featured in Poetry in Transit. Kope has read at Word on the Street Vancouver, been a featured reader at Planet Earth Poetry, The Writer’s Studio Reading Series, and The Victoria Festival of Authors. She is the co-host, along with Yvonne Blomer, of the annual Forest Poet-Tree event which is part of the Victoria Festival of Authors.