In All This As I Stand By, her fifth collection, Carolyne Van Der Meer explores the unimportant, the everyday, the avoided, the forgotten. She weaves together details that lurk beneath the surface, the things we don’t notice or refuse to name, and creates a new understanding. Her lens captures an alternate way of looking at cobwebs, textured paint, porch swings, rock formations, roadkill, illness, abuse and loss.

“In her fifth book, All This As I Stand By, Carolyne Van Der Meer affirms her continuing interest in the salience of place, the complicated nature of human relationships, connections to animals, linkages of illness to creativity, and the role of spirituality in a fraught physical world. Van Der Meer writes of life experiences and social issues with a keen and compassionate observational eye. She is capable of narrative grace, metaphorical surprise, and insights toward which every writer strives — both startling and assuaging. She recognizes in these poems that ‘there are infinite ways to disrupt order’ and attends to ‘new patterns emerging’.” —Elana Wolff

Carolyne Van Der Meer is a Montreal journalist, public relations professional and university lecturer. Her articles, essays, short stories and poems have been published internationally in journals and anthologies. Her four previously published books are: Motherlode: A Mosaic of Dutch Wartime Experience (2014); Journeywoman (2017); Heart of Goodness: The Life of Marguerite Bourgeoys in 30 Poems | Du cœur à l’âme : La vie de Marguerite Bourgeoys en 30 poèmes (2020), and Sensorial (2022).