Lynn Davies
Biography
Lynn Davies - Photo Courtesy of Author
Lynn Davies is from Riverview, New Brunswick, where her family owned and operated a small bookstore in the area. This store was Davies’ earliest influence towards writing. After graduating from Riverview High School in 1972, Davies spent time travelling Europe before settling back into Maritimes roots. Davies married in 1978 and then attended the University of Kings College in Nova Scotia, where she graduated in 1983 with a BA (Honours) in English. While in school, she worked as a freelance writer for various Canadian publications, including Eastern Woods and Waters, Atlantic Insight, Canadian Geographic, Arts Atlantic, and The Globe and Mail.
Davies won the Lina Chartrand Award from literary magazine Contemporary Verse for her single poem “the Flamingo” and then decided to focus heavily on her collections of poetry; four years later she published her first book, The Bridge that Carries the Road (Brick Books, 1999). She has since released two additional collections; Where Sound Pools (Gooselane Editions, 2005); and How the Gods Pour Tea (Gooselane Editions, 2013).Various individual poems have been featured on CBC Radio and are translated into French and Spanish.
Davies has served on the executive boards for the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick (WFNS, WFNB), has taught Creative Writing at the University of New Brunswick, and has conducted local poetry workshops for students. Davies created Readwell Tutoring (Fredericton) and currently works at Westminster Books, Fredericton’s Independent Book Store. She currently lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
Davies won the Lina Chartrand Award from literary magazine Contemporary Verse for her single poem “the Flamingo” and then decided to focus heavily on her collections of poetry; four years later she published her first book, The Bridge that Carries the Road (Brick Books, 1999). She has since released two additional collections; Where Sound Pools (Gooselane Editions, 2005); and How the Gods Pour Tea (Gooselane Editions, 2013).Various individual poems have been featured on CBC Radio and are translated into French and Spanish.
Davies has served on the executive boards for the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick (WFNS, WFNB), has taught Creative Writing at the University of New Brunswick, and has conducted local poetry workshops for students. Davies created Readwell Tutoring (Fredericton) and currently works at Westminster Books, Fredericton’s Independent Book Store. She currently lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
Additional Information:
Author's Personal Website
New Brunswick Literary Encyclopedia Entry
Interview for Bibliovideo
The Bridge that Carries the Road
How the Gods Pour Tea
Author's Personal Website
New Brunswick Literary Encyclopedia Entry
Interview for Bibliovideo
The Bridge that Carries the Road
How the Gods Pour Tea
Cat on the porch, I know you hear the wind
in the leaves on the ground.
Another cold-paw season coming
and nowhere to walk
except the paths I’ll shovel to the woodpile,
the road, and for you.
Hey cat, if a train ever comes through
this damn town,
we’ll hop it, the rails warming up, rolling
us south together.
Winter’s a big room for worries, cat.
How to pay the bills,
dry boots out in time, will the roads disappear
again tomorrow?
Ice in your water bowl and my knees, days
and days inside.
Hey cat, would you consider wings?
Rare birds, you and I,
above the trees already bare and days
going up in smoke.
We could follow the wild geese south,
mess up their V.
No worries cat, nothing to fall into
but the sky.
Published in Where Sound Pools. Goose Lane Editions, 2005.
Used with permission of the Author.
in the leaves on the ground.
Another cold-paw season coming
and nowhere to walk
except the paths I’ll shovel to the woodpile,
the road, and for you.
Hey cat, if a train ever comes through
this damn town,
we’ll hop it, the rails warming up, rolling
us south together.
Winter’s a big room for worries, cat.
How to pay the bills,
dry boots out in time, will the roads disappear
again tomorrow?
Ice in your water bowl and my knees, days
and days inside.
Hey cat, would you consider wings?
Rare birds, you and I,
above the trees already bare and days
going up in smoke.
We could follow the wild geese south,
mess up their V.
No worries cat, nothing to fall into
but the sky.
Published in Where Sound Pools. Goose Lane Editions, 2005.
Used with permission of the Author.
Critical Analysis: Lynn Davies Considers Life's Entrapment in "Frosty Porch Blues"
Scott Lingley (Advanced Poetry Workshop) and Monica Grasse (ACPA Managing Editor 2015)
As the snow accumulates and covers what we once knew, so life carries a weight that grows with heartache, instilling overpowering sorrow. Lynn Davies’ poem “Frosty Porch Blues” uses winter imagery to consider how people are often trapped by life by using a conversation with a cat, and escape in blues format to propose and find a more rational outlook on reality.
Davies projects her feelings of entrapment onto the cat, constantly compares winter to spring and summer (where they are able to roam outdoors with no boundaries). The cat’s anticipation for cold paw season parallels the adult wishing again for a carefree spirit instead of current responsibilities. Similarly, as the cat sees snow as confinement, humans view life’s stresses and hardships as things which confine them both emotionally and physically, with “nowhere to walk” (4). Once Davies has readers empathizing with the cat (and by association, the narrator), she shows readers how to take their cares and view them from a new angle: that of a feline whose comically worries allow readers to take comfort and contentment in their own lives if they choose to solve their problems as the cat does.
The concept of freedom alleviates such pain and the narrator’s and the cat’s struggles with feeling bound by winter and life. Davies contradicts her earlier human worries of “how to pay the bills” by entering the mind of the cat, who worries just as much as the human, but whose concerns are comical in comparison (12). The narrator offers the cat advice for coping, which is really an encouragement for herself:
Hey cat, would you consider wings?
rare birds you and I,
above the trees already bare and days
going up in smoke (17-20).
The narrator tells the cat not to dwell on the harsh reality of life, but to consider the good, even if it must be imagined (and is only temporary). With this in mind, the narrator proves that neither winter nor life can hold them down: “No worries cat, nothing to fall into/but the sky” (23-24).
Davies’ poem repositions life’s problems – no matter how big or small – through the mind of a cat so that a harsh reality turns into a more pleasing imaginary. This shifted thinking lessens the weight of life’s burdens for the narrator and reader. Furthermore, because the poem presents a cat and its problems, it gives them a chance to temporarily remove themselves from their own suffering to instead focus on the smaller, contrived issues of the cat.
Works Cited (for analysis):
Davies, Lynn. Where Sound Pools. Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 2005.
As the snow accumulates and covers what we once knew, so life carries a weight that grows with heartache, instilling overpowering sorrow. Lynn Davies’ poem “Frosty Porch Blues” uses winter imagery to consider how people are often trapped by life by using a conversation with a cat, and escape in blues format to propose and find a more rational outlook on reality.
Davies projects her feelings of entrapment onto the cat, constantly compares winter to spring and summer (where they are able to roam outdoors with no boundaries). The cat’s anticipation for cold paw season parallels the adult wishing again for a carefree spirit instead of current responsibilities. Similarly, as the cat sees snow as confinement, humans view life’s stresses and hardships as things which confine them both emotionally and physically, with “nowhere to walk” (4). Once Davies has readers empathizing with the cat (and by association, the narrator), she shows readers how to take their cares and view them from a new angle: that of a feline whose comically worries allow readers to take comfort and contentment in their own lives if they choose to solve their problems as the cat does.
The concept of freedom alleviates such pain and the narrator’s and the cat’s struggles with feeling bound by winter and life. Davies contradicts her earlier human worries of “how to pay the bills” by entering the mind of the cat, who worries just as much as the human, but whose concerns are comical in comparison (12). The narrator offers the cat advice for coping, which is really an encouragement for herself:
Hey cat, would you consider wings?
rare birds you and I,
above the trees already bare and days
going up in smoke (17-20).
The narrator tells the cat not to dwell on the harsh reality of life, but to consider the good, even if it must be imagined (and is only temporary). With this in mind, the narrator proves that neither winter nor life can hold them down: “No worries cat, nothing to fall into/but the sky” (23-24).
Davies’ poem repositions life’s problems – no matter how big or small – through the mind of a cat so that a harsh reality turns into a more pleasing imaginary. This shifted thinking lessens the weight of life’s burdens for the narrator and reader. Furthermore, because the poem presents a cat and its problems, it gives them a chance to temporarily remove themselves from their own suffering to instead focus on the smaller, contrived issues of the cat.
Works Cited (for analysis):
Davies, Lynn. Where Sound Pools. Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 2005.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Davies, Lynn. "At the Funeral Home." Fiddlehead. (2016): 103.
---.The Bridge that Carries the Road. London: Brick Books, 1999.
---. "Cracking Up." The Antigonish Review 197/198 (Spring/Summer 2019): 66.
---. How the Gods Pour Tea. Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 2013.
---. "In the Bookstore." Fiddlehead. (2016): 104.
---. "Kathleen." The Antigonish Review 197/198 (Spring/Summer 2019): 66.
---. “Lynn Davies.” lynndavies.ca. Accessed 3 June, 2015.
---. "The Sea Turtle." Fiddlehead. (2016): 105.
---. So Imagine Me: Nature Riddles in Poetry. Art by Chrissie Park-MacNeil. Halifax: Nimbus Publishing, 2020.
---. "Using Your Old File Folders." The Antigonish Review 197/198 (Spring/Summer 2019): 67.
---. Where Sound Pools. Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 2005.
Secondary Sources
"authors: Lynn Davies." Goose Lane. Goose Lane Editions, n.d.
Burke, Anne. "The Bridge That Carries the Road, by Lynn Davies." The League of Canadian Poets. Poets.ca, 7 May 2013.
Carey, Barb. “Poetry.” Rev. of Where Sound Pools, by Lynn Davies. Toronto Star 20 Nov. 2005: D6.
Cronin, Ray. “Clear, Accessible, Inventive, Complex.” Rev. of The Bridge that Carries the Road, by Lynn Davies. Daily Gleaner [Fredericton] 27 Nov. 1999: B7.
Davies, Lynn. "A grand nod to the intricate world." Rev. of Caribou Run by Richard Kelly Kemick. The Fiddlehead 270 (Winter 2017): 116-119.
---. "As Young as Verbs." Rev. of Then / Again by Michelle Elrick. The Fiddlehead 276 (Summer 2018): 176-178.
---. "Our Zippered Selves." Rev. of Tell Them It Was Mozart by Angeline Schellenberg. The Fiddlehead 273 (Autumn 2017): 124-126.
---. "Wave Games." Rev. of I'd Write the Sea Like a Parlour Game by Alison Dyer. The Fiddlehead 274 (Winter 2018): 107-108.
Lahey, Anita. Rev. of Where Sound Pools, by Lynn Davies. The Malahat Review 155 (Summer 2006): 87-89.
Learmouth, Nicholas. "Lynn Davies." New Brunswick Literary Encyclopedia. St. Thomas University, n.d.
Leckie, Ross. “Living with Loneliness.” Rev. of The Bridge that Carries the Road, by Lynn Davies. The New Brunswick Reader 23 Oct. 1999: 21.
Lynes, Jeanette, ed. Words Out There: Women Poets in Atlantic Canada. Lockport: Roseway Publishing Co., 1999. 186-90.
Maloney, Sarah, Lynn Davies, and Joseph Sherman. Sarah Maloney, Lynn Davies. Fredericton: Beaverbrook Art Gallery, 2006.
Marcotte, Daniel. "Lynn Davies latest poetry collection a success." The Argosy. Mount Allison University, 20 Nov 2013.
"Our Members: Lynn Davies." Writer's Federation of Nova Scotia. The Canada Council for the Arts, n.d.
Davies, Lynn. "At the Funeral Home." Fiddlehead. (2016): 103.
---.The Bridge that Carries the Road. London: Brick Books, 1999.
---. "Cracking Up." The Antigonish Review 197/198 (Spring/Summer 2019): 66.
---. How the Gods Pour Tea. Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 2013.
---. "In the Bookstore." Fiddlehead. (2016): 104.
---. "Kathleen." The Antigonish Review 197/198 (Spring/Summer 2019): 66.
---. “Lynn Davies.” lynndavies.ca. Accessed 3 June, 2015.
---. "The Sea Turtle." Fiddlehead. (2016): 105.
---. So Imagine Me: Nature Riddles in Poetry. Art by Chrissie Park-MacNeil. Halifax: Nimbus Publishing, 2020.
---. "Using Your Old File Folders." The Antigonish Review 197/198 (Spring/Summer 2019): 67.
---. Where Sound Pools. Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 2005.
Secondary Sources
"authors: Lynn Davies." Goose Lane. Goose Lane Editions, n.d.
Burke, Anne. "The Bridge That Carries the Road, by Lynn Davies." The League of Canadian Poets. Poets.ca, 7 May 2013.
Carey, Barb. “Poetry.” Rev. of Where Sound Pools, by Lynn Davies. Toronto Star 20 Nov. 2005: D6.
Cronin, Ray. “Clear, Accessible, Inventive, Complex.” Rev. of The Bridge that Carries the Road, by Lynn Davies. Daily Gleaner [Fredericton] 27 Nov. 1999: B7.
Davies, Lynn. "A grand nod to the intricate world." Rev. of Caribou Run by Richard Kelly Kemick. The Fiddlehead 270 (Winter 2017): 116-119.
---. "As Young as Verbs." Rev. of Then / Again by Michelle Elrick. The Fiddlehead 276 (Summer 2018): 176-178.
---. "Our Zippered Selves." Rev. of Tell Them It Was Mozart by Angeline Schellenberg. The Fiddlehead 273 (Autumn 2017): 124-126.
---. "Wave Games." Rev. of I'd Write the Sea Like a Parlour Game by Alison Dyer. The Fiddlehead 274 (Winter 2018): 107-108.
Lahey, Anita. Rev. of Where Sound Pools, by Lynn Davies. The Malahat Review 155 (Summer 2006): 87-89.
Learmouth, Nicholas. "Lynn Davies." New Brunswick Literary Encyclopedia. St. Thomas University, n.d.
Leckie, Ross. “Living with Loneliness.” Rev. of The Bridge that Carries the Road, by Lynn Davies. The New Brunswick Reader 23 Oct. 1999: 21.
Lynes, Jeanette, ed. Words Out There: Women Poets in Atlantic Canada. Lockport: Roseway Publishing Co., 1999. 186-90.
Maloney, Sarah, Lynn Davies, and Joseph Sherman. Sarah Maloney, Lynn Davies. Fredericton: Beaverbrook Art Gallery, 2006.
Marcotte, Daniel. "Lynn Davies latest poetry collection a success." The Argosy. Mount Allison University, 20 Nov 2013.
"Our Members: Lynn Davies." Writer's Federation of Nova Scotia. The Canada Council for the Arts, n.d.
