A Possible Trust: The Poetry of Ronna Bloom
published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press
With compassion, humour and sharp-eyed irreverence, Ronna Bloom's work has made a significant impact on Canadian poetry. A Possible Trust is selected from her work to date.
In A Possible Trust, Bloom writes concisely of the fragility and determination of people in daily life and extraordinary health crises. She is attentive to suffering, as well as to spontaneous connections and gestures of love. Her poetry has been used by teachers, architects, spiritual leaders, and in hospitals across Canada.
Editor and poet Phil Hall's Introduction "To Lead by Crying" argues for a poetics of empathy. There is tenderness here where living matters, as does dying, a valuing of the incident, the encounter, the sorrow and the bowl-me-over delight. These poems stand firm with readers.
Defiant, comical, revealing, impolite yet respectful, A Possible Trust is a retrospective and celebration.
“This is lyric poetry, scraped to the bone. Shamanic, essential, useful. As poetry can be. As it is, in Ronna Bloom’s hands.” — Susan Wismer, The Miramichi Reader
Featured Clients
“Ronna is a very gifted facilitator; blending her love of language with a spirit of play and a great respect for individual’s needs and experiences.”
Leadership Development Coordinator, Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, University of Toronto
“Use these poems as breaks in meetings
that become tense and threaten.
Use them to alter the wind in the room,
the sail in the boat can fill and go a different direction.”