Hawking the Surf

Imagine a meeting between Robert Frost and David Attenborough, and they make poetry together. Hawking the Surf is it; a masterpiece that takes the reader on a grand journey to the Western shores on the wings of butterflies. As you travel through the latitudes, share in the memories and dreams of the poet, you will undoubtedly be carried on as this reader was. This is a collection that you will want to read again and again, something not so common with poetry anymore. It is full of emotions, passions, and realities that are most relatable to all of us. Although you may never have traveled to those realms, you are certain to experience them as if you had. The author gives us access to an entire natural world, and we want to hug it with all our might, love it, and preserve it, however much pain we may have to endure as we do so. This is a winner written by one but made for all. ─ Fabrice Poussin, Professor, Shorter University, Rome, Georgia U.S.A. and author of: Through the Lens of Solitude; Forgive Me For Dreaming; In Absentia; Half Past Life; and The Temptation of Silence. ─/ -- These poems are steeped in the complex geography of Canada's west coast and the Pacific Ocean waters around Vancouver Island. Whether you live there or not you will be drawn to how these poems make it clear that landscape and human relationships are intertwined and it is impossible to undo that. The many photographs by Diana Hayes in the book help to ground the poems in the real. ─//'--Robert Hilles, author of: From God's Angle, Don't Hang Your Soul on That, and The Pink Puppet. /─To step into the world of Hawking the Surf is to step into the mist and fog of ephemeral memories from the coast of British Columbia in the 1970's, where Hayes ""walked and paced with no moon to navigate"". Accompanied by her mystical photographs in endless hues of gray, the poems rest softly on the reader while carrying an emotional power that slowly wrenches the heart. ─//--Cynthia Pitman, Orlando, Florida, author of: Broken; The White Room; Blood Orange; and Breathe. ─/─ To step into the world of Hawking the Surf is to step into the mist and fog of ephemeral memories from the coast of British Columbia in the 1970's, where Hayes ""walked and paced with no moon to navigate"". Accompanied by her mystical photographs in endless hues of gray, the poems rest softly on the reader while carrying an emotional power that slowly wrenches the heart. ─ Cynthia Pitman, Orlando, Florida, author of: Broken; The White Room; Blood Orange; and Breathe. ─//──In Hawking the Surf, Diana Hayes has given us a mesmer, an exquisite, lyrical collection, poignant with her personal and literary past, and with the past of oceans, rocks, islands, the global environment. Despite clearly marked geographical coordinates for many of the poems in headnotes, Hayes writes as ""fog falling beyond water,"" catching the reader off guard, drawing us in. Read this book and ""savour the words slowly like it's a matter of survival. ─ Arleen Paré author of: Absence of Wings.