A Saving Grace: The Collected Poems of Mrs. Bentley

Sinclair Ross’s As For Me and My House has not only influenced two generations of Canadian writers, including Margaret Laurence, but it has also given us one of the most controversial figures in Canadian writing. Now, more than 50 years after Mrs. Bentley’s creation, Lorna Crozier returns to this challenging character, and in the unique voice of Mrs. Bentley writes a series of poems set in the mythical Saskatchewan town of Horizon during the Dirty Thirties. Through this powerfully imagined character, Crozier explores being a woman in that time of loneliness, struggle, and drought.

A Saving Grace comes from the heart of that country – the place that has shaped Lorna Crozier. A sequence of evocative poems, it tries to come to terms with the emotional and spiritual qualities of southwest Saskatchewan’s grassland prairie, providing intense meditations about the landscape and the presiding spirits of wind, dust, coyotes, foxes, and sky.

A Saving Grace is a unique contribution to Canadian literature and a special treat for admirers of Lorna Crozier’s poetry, as well as for readers of Sinclair Ross’s beloved novel. By expanding on the viewpoint of this Canadian classic, Crozier has fashioned an alternate but complementary story out of the old, and presented readers with yet newer mysteries to contemplate.

Lorna Crozier’s work has won numerous awards, including the Governor General’s Award, the Pat Lowther Poetry Award, the Canadian Authors Association Award, and the First Prize for Poetry in the CBC Literary Competition. She has published fourteen books of poetry, most recently, Whetstone. Crozier also edited Desire in Seven Voices and, with Patrick Lane, Addicted: Notes from the Belly of the Beast. Born in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, she now lives in British Columbia, where she teaches at the University of Victoria.


From the Trade Paperback edition.